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Chadwick Boseman’s widow Simone Ledward-Boseman has explained why she brought a pair of the late star’s shoes to the Hollywood Walk of Fame star ceremony after his death.
“I just thought they were beautiful shoes. He wore them a lot,” Ledward-Boseman told PEOPLE on Thursday, Nov. 20, after Ledward-Boseman, Ryan Coogler and Viola Davis paid a touching tribute to the late star, who passed away in 2020 at age 43.
Ledward-Boseman, who had been romantically involved with the Black Panther actor since 2015 and married him before his death, accepted the honor on the Walk of Fame on her late husband’s behalf. She brought a pair of black shoes to the ceremony and placed them next to Bozeman’s star athlete as soon as they were unveiled.
“You can tell by looking at the bottom of a shoe’s sole how much it’s worn,” Ledward Bozeman says. “I just thought they were beautiful shoes. They reminded me of a lot of the things he wore and the different looks he had, so I thought they were the perfect shoes to bring today.”
Ledward-Boseman, Coogler, 39, and Davis, 60, were among those in attendance at the ceremony, held on Nov. 20 in Los Angeles, as well as Boseman’s brothers Kevin Boseman and Derrick Boseman, Black Panther co-stars Michael B. Jordan and Letitia Wright, and Walt Disney CEO Bob Iger.
In their speeches at the ceremony, Davis and Coogler each reflected on the lessons they learned from working with and becoming friends with Boseman while making films such as Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom and Black Panther. Ledward-Boseman shared what she described as the “instruction to be creative” she received from her late husband, telling PEOPLE that Boseman taught her to protect her “energy” in everyday life.
“It allows you to center yourself and takes the pressure off of always being available. He was lucky to have a really great team to protect his energy, but he also had to do a lot of that on his own,” she says. “I’ll always remember that.”
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Boseman is best known for playing the Marvel superhero Black Panther in the 2018 standalone film and various Avengers movies. He also made a career playing iconic black Americans of the 20th century such as Jackie Robinson, James Brown, and Thurgood Marshall in various biopics. When asked if Boseman thought about his legacy before dying from cancer, Ledward-Boseman told PEOPLE, “I didn’t think about it.
“I think he was thinking about the work and what he was doing in that moment and what it meant to the people who were going to interact with it,” she says. “I don’t think he thought about it from his own perspective as to what he was leaving behind. I think he was really focused on his work and I think he left a legacy with intention and power and purpose.”
Bozeman’s star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame is the 2,828th star placed on the street.
