Denzel Washington urged late star Chadwick Boseman to hurry up and marry his wife, Taylor Simone, before someone else did.
In a new interview with CBS Sunday Morning, the Oscar winner opened up about working with Chadwick on his final film, Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom, and recalled offering the young star a little relationship advice.
Chadwick and Taylor were only dating when the Black Panther star was shooting the Netflix movie. Denzel, who co-produced the film, saw something beautiful between the couple and suggested Boseman should act upon it.
“They weren’t even married yet, and I used to watch how she took care of him, and I actually said to him, ‘Man, you know, you need to put a ring on that finger’, cause she kept her eye on him and she watched him,” Washington explained.
“I’m like, ‘Man, she loves that guy’. But I didn’t know what we know now.”
Boseman lost his secret battle with cancer in August at age 43, and Washington, 65, reveals no one on the Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom set even knew he was sick.
“Credit to him; he kept it to himself. It was nobody’s business. He was there to deliver and he delivered,” adds Denzel, who is pictured with his wife of 37 years, Pauletta at the Oscars in 2003.
Chadwick and Taylor were married in a private ceremony earlier in the year and many people didn’t know he was married until after his death.
