In August, Chadwick Boseman died from colon cancer at the age of 43. Six months later, he won his first Golden Globe: Lead Actor in a Motion Picture Drama, for his role in Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom. Accepting the award on his behalf, Boseman’s wife, Taylor Simone Ledward, gave a heartbreaking speech memorializing the Black Panther actor.
“He would thank God, he would thank his parents, he would thank his ancestors for their guidance and sacrifices,” Ledward said, through tears. She went on to thank Boseman’s team, name by name. “He would say something beautiful, something inspiring, something that amplifies that little voice inside of all of us that tells you you can, that tells you to keep going, that calls you back to what you are meant to be doing at this moment in history.”
“I don’t have his words, but we have to take all the moments to celebrate those we love,” she concluded. “So thank you, HFPA, for this opportunity to do exactly that. And hun, you keep ’em coming.”
This is the second such speech Ledward has given for her husband in recent weeks, having accepted the Gotham Awards’ Film Tribute to Boseman in January. She wasn’t the only one to praise the late actor at Sunday’s ceremony: Angela Bassett, who appeared alongside Boseman in Black Panther, paid tribute to him during the E! pre-show. “His work still remains with us,” Bassett said, per People. “He was an incredible individual, man, professional, artist. All of it.”
