Chadwick Boseman’s widow Simone Ledward Boseman discussed the late actor’s life and legacy in a new interview. Speaking with Whoopi Goldberg, she shared details of the highs and lows with the movie star, dating back to when they met.
She detailed how on their first encounter, she had been working at the Hollywood Bowl, a concert venue in Los Angeles. Boseman was in attendance for a James Brown tribute concert.
“We were on the side of the stage at a certain point, and I guess he didn’t know if I was really catching his hints. And he just kinda randomly just bent down and untied one of my shoelaces … as a little joke,” she described “And I said, ‘Oh, OK, so this is flirting, this is him flirting with me.’ And then he got back down and said, ‘Oh, I’m sorry.’ He got back down, and he retied my shoelace.”
Elsewhere in the conversation, she opened up about their determination to keep the Black Panther star’s health concerns private. The couple shared two years together before his diagnosis.
“There was always some level of concern,” she said. “But we really do have a very, very trusted circle of people that were there to support him, and support me, and help us, you know, do the best that we could with the challenging time.”
Ledward Boseman also used the space to uplift the legacy of her late husband.
“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. Sure, he was an actor and that was — there was a lot of fun stuff that we got to do. But he was an artist.”
She added, “He was an artist, and he was a leader and he was a king. And that I got to be by his side for that — that he chose me to be by his side for that is just — it’s the greatest blessing. Even with the pain of his loss, now I still get to have this beautiful spirit relationship with him. And that, while it’s difficult to accept, is also beautiful because he’s an ancestor now. He is and he is never leaving me.”
Watch Simone Ledward Boseman’s interview with Whoopi Goldberg below.