Five years after the 2021 Oscars, Simone Ledward-Boseman shared the acceptance speech she wrote in case her late husband Chadwick Boseman received a posthumous Best Actor win.
The late actor’s widow shared the heartfelt message with The Hollywood Reporter‘s oral history of the 2021 Oscars, published on Friday, Mar. 13. Simone Ledward-Boseman, who married the Black Panther star in 2020 before his death, wrote in her speech:
“It says: I will never stop thanking God for you. Thank you to the most high God. Thank you, Carolyn and Leroy Boseman [Chadwick’s parents], and your mothers, and your mothers’ mothers. What purity. What honesty. What pain. What a role. What work.”
It was Anthony Hopkins who secured the Best Actor trophy for his performance in The Father as an 83-year-old man with dementia. At the time, many had expected that the Academy Awards would hold a segment to pay tribute to Chadwick Boseman one last time.
Simone Ledward-Boseman continued in her speech:
“What beautiful, intricate humanity. What courage, bravery, fearlessness, honesty, commitment, humanity, strength. A spirit that refused to surrender to despair. What an actor. What an artist. What a cast. What a team. What a vision. Glory be to the most high God. Long live the King.”
What was Chadwick Boseman’s cause of death?
Chadwick Boseman passed away on Aug. 28, 2020, at age 43 due to complications related to stage IV colon cancer, a diagnosis he had privately battled for four years. He was diagnosed with stage 3 colon cancer in 2016, which progressed to stage 4 in a span of four years.
Despite this, while he was receiving treatment, the actor went to film his movies, Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom and Da 5 Bloods. He died in his home in Los Angeles while surrounded by his family.
Meanwhile, in the oral history by THR, director Steven Soderbergh explained in his interview that the Best Actor award was moved to the end of the 2021 ceremony as they felt “there was nowhere to go after” a potential win for Chadwick Boseman.
“Everything we did was about kindness. Chadwick Boseman’s widow was coming in. She didn’t go to any other shows. We had a special camper for her that she could be in so that she didn’t have to sit in the room. The idea was that if it was before best picture, and Chadwick lost, she’d have to sit through to the end, and we didn’t want to put her in that position.”
He further admitted:
“It was actually done to be as kind to her as possible and keep her in the room for the least amount of time that she had to be because it was a brave and intense thing for her to be dealing with her grief publicly.”
Edited by Gladys Altamarino