Comedienne Jess Hilarious regrets making fun of Chadwick Boseman’s gaunt appearance before he died of colon cancer.
The co-host of the “Breakfast Club” morning show in NYC mocked Chadwick’s weight loss in a “Jess with the Mess” post on social media in 2020.
Jess was among many people who made fun of the actor’s skeletal appearance in his final livestream video.
At the time, the public was unaware of Chadwick’s terminal cancer diagnosis. The “Black Panther” star kept his cancer illness a secret.
In the new episode of “The Pivot Podcast,” Jess explained that she thought Chadwick had lost weight in preparation for a movie role.
“I was gon’ stop doing ‘Jess with the Mess’ ’cause all I do is riff on people… That’s my thing. And I remember Chadwick Boseman had dropped a video shortly before he passed, and I thought he was training for a movie. I thought he was, you know, some people really get into the roles that they, you know, lose weight for a role or something like that.”
Jess added: “He was telling people to stay inside… I said you need to stay inside or something like that… Of course, I didn’t know anything about his cancer or anything like that… I riffed on him, and everybody thought it was funny and cool, even myself until he passed.”
The paparazzi snapped photos of the frail actor in a wheelchair outside a medical center shortly before he died in August 2020 at age 43.
“I [didn’t even] care how people looked at me. How I looked at myself was crazy,” Jess continued. “I was like, alright, I gotta change the way I move. For a minute, I didn’t want to do ‘Jess with the Mess’ no more because you don’t know what the hell people [are] going through, you don’t know when you come at somebody’s appearance… I just looked at him as a great actor.”
“He was so unproblematic,” said Jess. “That’s the only thing I regret.”