The wife of late Black Panther star Chadwick Boseman opened up about his life, legacy, and ailing health in her first interview since his death, per People.
Ahead of the premiere of the Black Panther sequel, widow Simone Ledward Boseman sat down with Whoopi Goldberg, reflecting on the “most challenging two years” of her life in an interview that aired Tuesday (November 2) on Good Morning America.
Simone said her husband’s health began to “spiral” during the coronavirus pandemic, which marked his fourth year battling colon cancer.
“It seemed like, ‘Is this a crazy coincidence?’ That we get to actually be inside, we get to be here with family, you know, together, and everybody in the world is also experiencing this togetherness in the midst of this awful, scary, unpredictable time,” she recalled.
The Boseman family kept his health relatively private, so news of the 43-year-old actor’s death in August 2020 “shocked and devastated” the world, Goldberg said.
“Some days, I’m doing worse than I’m really willing to acknowledge. Other days, I’m doing better than I feel comfortable admitting,” Simone shared during the interview.
Chadwick’s legacy lives on through a scholarship at Howard University, his “beloved” alma mater. The HBCU’s college of fine arts was also renamed in his honor.
“We have four scholars. One of them graduated this past year, and was very proud to be the first graduating Boseman scholar of the first graduating class of the Chadwick Boseman College of Fine Arts,” Simone said.
Through the scholarship, Simone said she is “taking this mantle and we are carrying it to as many voices as we can.”
“I can’t believe that I was so lucky,” she said. “I can’t believe that I got to love this person, and I also got them to love me too.”
Black Panther: Wakanda Forever hits the box office on Nov. 11.
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