Simone Ledward Boseman on five years since Chadwick Boseman’s death

Simone Ledward Boseman is reflecting on the five years since her husband’s death. “The edges of grief get less sharp over time,” she says. We meet on a video call from California at 9am; she jokes she won’t speak to anyone before 10am except her mother. She made an exception to give a rare interview ahead of the UK premiere of Deep Azure at Shakespeare’s Globe.

The announcement of Chadwick Boseman’s death sent a global shock. He was 43, and Black Panther had turned him into a global megastar and the first Black superhero in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. The family had not revealed his colorectal cancer; the diagnosis, first made in 2016, had been closely guarded.

“Something like a cancer diagnosis can get in the way of a lot of things,” she says, noting that he worked through treatment, shooting seven movies including Black Panther and making countless public appearances. “He never wanted to be treated differently.” Privacy was a priority for the couple.

United States, California

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