Chadwick Boseman's Widow Explains Why the Actor and Family Kept His Cancer Diagnosis a Secret

Chadwick Boseman blew fans away when he arrived on the scene as Marvel’s Black Panther. He was quietly powerful, and wholly embodied the iconic character that fans were eager to see accurately portrayed on screen.

After appearing in the Avengers films Infinity War and Endgame, Boseman was set to return for the Black Panther sequel, but he sadly passed away on August 28, 2020, after battling cancer.

Fans were shocked, as the actor and his family had kept his illness a secret. While this was his prerogative, and none of anyone’s business, it did hit the fanbase especially hard, as no one had an idea it was coming.

In a recent interview with The Guardian, Boseman’s widow, Simone Ledward Boseman, explained what they were going through after his 2016 diagnosis, and talked about their decision to keep things private. “Something like a cancer diagnosis can get in the way of a lot of things,” she explained.

The actor worked throughout his treatment, shooting seven movies – including Black Panther – and making countless public appearances. “He never wanted to be treated differently. A lot of the roles he did were so physical, and he still wanted to do them. He did not want to be judged by what he was experiencing. He didn’t want his diagnosis to interfere with the work.”

She went on to talk about the hard parts of stardom, noting that “there’s that danger in any sharing, because one person says something else, then another person says something else, and then it’s on the wind. And the wind is going to carry it wherever it does,” she says.

This meant that the couple’s privacy was already a priority. “When you’re in a position like Chad’s, everything you’re doing has to be protected. You just have to be careful who you tell your plans to,” she says.

“And if you are someone who only wants to have deep, meaningful relationships and conversations, you very quickly come to find that your circle is going to be small because you can’t have those conversations with very many people.”

When it came to people who knew about Boseman’s health, “it was a couple of family members and a couple of friends. I had my therapist and my mom, and that was basically it. The circle became a dot.”

That makes perfect sense, and I’m glad that even though Boseman lost his battle, he got to live those last four years the way he wanted. He will forever be remembered as our beloved Black Panther.