Chadwick Boseman seemingly hinted at his private battle with cancer in 2017 interview

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Chadwick Boseman seemingly hinted at his private battle with colon cancer just one year after he was diagnosed with the disease. 

Boseman passed away at age 43 on Friday, and the actor appeared to allude to his health struggles in an interview he did with the Huffington Post in 2017. 

Reporter Matthew Jacobs shared a screenshot of his interview with Boseman on Friday, in which he asks the star, ‘You came off of one Black Panther project, did Marshall and then made another Black Panther movie. Did you bulk up, slim down and then bulk up again?’ 

‘Right. Yeah, yeah, yeah,’ Boseman replied, nodding his head and appearing exhausted.  

‘You’ve been through the wringer,’ Jacobs continued. 

‘Oh, you don’t even know,’ Boseman responded with a laugh. ‘You have no idea. One day I’ll live to tell the story.’ 

Tributes have been pouring in online after news broke of Boseman’s death on Friday.   

Among the memories circulating online was a resurfaced clip from 2018 of Boseman speaking movingly about two young fans he met who had terminal cancer.  

The actor had been diagnosed with his own cancer in 2016, two years before he tearfully recited the story of the boys.

Boseman recounted meeting ‘two little kids,’ Ian and Taylor, with whom he was staying in touch throughout the production of Black Panther, which was released in February 2018.

‘What they said to me, and what their parents said, they’re just trying to hold on until this movie comes,’ he recounted.

The Da 5 Bloods actor said that knowledge spurred him on to work harder on Black Panther.

‘It’s a humbling experience because you’re like, ‘This can’t mean that much to them,’ you know?’ he said. ‘But seeing how the world has taken us on, seeing how the movement is, how it’s taken on a life of its own, I realized that they anticipated something great.’

Boseman was overcome with tears as he recalled that the two boys had both died before they were able to see the completed film.

‘When I found out that they…’ he began before let out a long sigh and pushing back from the microphone while his costars Lupita Nyong’o and Danai Gurira both tried to comfort him he.

After along pause, he spoke again as tears rolled down his cheeks.

‘Yeah, it means a lot,’ he said, before the video cut out. 

Boseman’s family announced Friday night via his social media accounts that the actor had died.

In their note, they wrote that he had been ‘diagnosed with stage III colon cancer in 2016,’ which later ‘progressed to stage IV.’

‘A true fighter, Chadwick persevered through it all, and brought you many of the films you have come to love so much.’

The actor’s family also confirmed that many of his greatest movie roles were filmed ‘during and between countless surgeries and chemotherapy.’

In June, he appeared in Spike Lee’s Da 5 Bloods as a fallen soldier who was killed in Vietnam. Decades later, his squad mates return to find his body and give him a proper burial, while also stealing a supply of gold that was left with him. 

‘It was the honor of his career to bring King T’Challa to life in Black Panther,’ the statement said. ‘The family thanks you for your love and prayers, and asks that you continue to respect their privacy during this difficult time.’ 

Boseman is survived by his wife Taylor Simone Ledward and a parent and had no children, his publicist said.

The couple were first linked in 2019 and had secretly married, which wasn’t reported until after his death.

Boseman resisted mentioning his cancer diagnosis in his final years, though many fans became concerned after seeing photos of him looking unusually gaunt.

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