Chadwick Boseman: Black Panther stars join actor’s family at private memorial

Actor died of colon cancer last month

Chadwick Boseman’s Black Panther co-stars joined his family at a private memorial in Malibu on Sunday (6 September).

The actor died of colon cancer aged 43 last month. He had kept his illness a secret from the public and many of his colleagues.

Marvel stars including Lupita Nyong’o, Michael B Jordan and Winston Duke were among those joining the late actor’s wife, singer Taylor Simone Ledward, and family at the ceremony. Flowers and photos of Boseman decorated the venue.

Tributes have poured in for Boseman since his death. His on-screen sister in Black Panther, Letitia Wright, shared a moving eulogy for Boseman last week. “I wish I got to say goodbye,” she can be heard saying in the video, her voice cracking. “I messaged you a couple times but I thought you were just busy. I didn’t know you were dealing with so much.”

Boseman’s agent recently revealed why he kept his cancer diagnosis a secret, explaining that it partly came down to lessons Boseman had learned from his mother, Carolyn.

Chadwick Boseman and Letitia Wright (Getty)

″[She] always taught him not to have people fuss over him,” said Greene. “He also felt in this business that people trip out about things, and he was a very, very private person.”

Boseman’s last project, the Netflix film Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom, will be released on 27 November.