Key Takeaways
- Taylor Simone Ledward-Boseman says she offered Chadwick Boseman’s family equal terms for a planned documentary, though they allegedly requested separate agreements.
- She maintains that she controls Boseman’s name and likeness and has distributed nearly all estate assets without losing, wasting, or mismanaging any funds.
- The documentary dispute follows Boseman’s brothers’ effort to remove her as estate administrator, which her attorney called a “public-relations stunt to smear Simone in the tabloid press.”
A planned documentary about Chadwick Boseman has become the latest flashpoint in the increasingly public battle between his widow and family over the late Black Panther star’s legacy.
Taylor Simone Ledward-Boseman says she is working with production company Words + Pictures on a documentary celebrating Boseman’s life and is seeking a deal with Searchlight Pictures to produce the project, according to court documents obtained by TMZ. But what was intended as another tribute to Boseman has now become entangled in the estate dispute between Ledward-Boseman and her late husband’s family.
According to the filing, the proposed documentary deal was structured on a “Most Favored Nation basis,” which Ledward-Boseman says would provide equal treatment to both sides of Boseman’s family. “Both sides of the family were sent identical paperwork,” she said in the court documents.
Boseman’s family members, however, allegedly requested separate agreements with the production company.
Ledward-Boseman argues she was not required to offer them the same deal in the first place, saying she retained “100% right to control and benefit from Chadwick’s name, image, voice, signature, likeness, etc.” She characterized her decision to include Boseman’s family in the documentary arrangement as “yet another example of Simone’s generosity to the Boseman family.”
The brothers filed their petition in July on behalf of their parents, Leroy and Carolyn Boseman, alleging Ledward-Boseman had failed to complete distributions ordered by the court in 2022. Boseman died without a will in August 2020 at age 43 after privately battling colon cancer for four years.
Ledward-Boseman disputes those allegations.
She said a remaining IRA worth roughly $300,000 has been held up because of legal action initiated by Boseman’s brothers.
“No Estate asset has been lost, wasted, or mismanaged,” her filing stated.
Ledward-Boseman also alleged she went considerably beyond the distributions required of her. Her filing said she gave more than $300,000 of her personal money to Derrick’s four children and, at Boseman’s parents’ request, distributed $75,000 apiece in SAG-AFTRA residuals to Derrick and Kevin.
Her attorney, Adam Streisand, called the brothers’ legal challenge a “public-relations stunt to smear Simone in the tabloid press,” adding, “This is how the family repays her.”
The conflict stretches back almost to the immediate aftermath of Boseman’s death. Attorneys for his parents and brothers sought access to his medical records, finances, and electronic devices in late 2020.
Subsequent correspondence questioned the level of hydromorphone found during Boseman’s autopsy and sought recordings the family believed contained instructions concerning his residuals.
Ledward-Boseman’s attorneys called those earlier claims “bogus and avaricious.”
Ledward-Boseman also maintains that she “has tried to consult with Chadwick’s family at all times with respect to activities she has undertaken to honor Chadwick’s legacy,” while claiming his family “has not done the same.”
