What We Now Know About Chadwick Boseman’s Heartbreaking Snub at the 2021 Oscars

As we prepare for the 98th Academy Awards this Sunday, March 15, in Los Angeles, we can’t help but get excited for the potential Black history moments that could be made. Yet, we also can’t help but remember the many times Black nominees have not received the recognition they deserved—specifically the awkward, upsetting Chadwick Boseman snub in 2021. But thanks to a recent oral history from The Hollywood Reporter, we’ve got new insight into that night and what Simone Ledward Boseman, Chadwick’s widow, would’ve said had he won. You might want to grab some tissues for this one.

Chadwick Boseman died on August 28, 2020 when he was only 43 from colon cancer. He posthumously received an Academy Award nomination for Best Actor for his role in Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom. The report includes interviews with over 40 people who reflected on the uncomfortable moment British actor Anthony Hopkins won the award instead of Chadwick Boseman. In the article, Simone discussed the speech she had prepared in the event her husband posthumously won Best Actor for his role in “Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom.”

First, she spoke about writing acceptance speeches throughout that awards season. Her talented husband had been recognized at the Critics Choice Awards, the Golden Globes and the NAACP Image Awards.

“It was challenging to figure out what I was going to say because I couldn’t say what he was going to say,” she told The Hollywood Reporter.

She noted that she spent time leafing through his notebooks to better embody his spirit and sense what he might have said, adding that it was “an honor to be able to do that for him.”

Although Boseman had a speech prepared for the Oscars, she never got the chance to deliver it. As we told you in 2021, producers changed the traditional category order, placing Best Actor last instead of Best Picture, which gave folks the impression that the night would conclude with a tribute to the late actor. Instead, when Hopkins won for the 2020 film “The Father,” the ceremony ended without any recognition of Chadwick Boseman.

“It was awkward. It was maybe more than a little bit uncomfortable,” Simone said of the moment. “But to be nominated for best actor is still an incredible accomplishment and is still recognition of his work. I don’t think that it was the intention of the producers for it to be uncomfortable. Looking back, it would have been better if Best Picture was last.”

After being asked what she would’ve said had Chadwick been recognized, she shared the speech she had written in her notes app:

“I will never stop thanking God for you. Thank you to the most high God. Thank you, Carolyn and Leroy Boseman, and your mothers, and your mothers’ mothers. What purity. What honesty. What pain. What a role. What work. What beautiful, intricate humanity. What courage, bravery, fearlessness, honesty, commitment, humanity, strength. A spirit that refused to surrender to despair. What an actor. What an artist. What a cast. What a team. What a vision. Glory be to the most high God. Long live the King.”

Filmmaker Steven Soderbergh, who produced the show that year, revealed the order change was actually intended to honor Boseman.

“The thinking was that if Chadwick won and his widow came up onstage and spoke, there was nowhere to go after that,” Soderbergh said. “Our feeling was, ‘If there’s a chance of that happening, then we should change the order of the show.’”

Producer Stacy Sher added that they were trying to be as kind to Simone as possible.

“It was actually done to be as kind to her as possible and keep her in the room for the least amount of time that she had to be because it was a brave and intense thing for her to be dealing with her grief publicly,” Sher said.

While the night remains one of the most controversial snubs in Oscars history, Simone told the publication that the coveted trophy wasn’t the most important thing. She recalled a gift from Denzel Washington, who produced “Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom,” given to the cast.

“Denzel gave as his cast gift a dog tag with a cross on it that’s engraved and says, ‘Man gives the award, God gives the reward.’ And I think that that summed it up really perfectly,” she said.