Chadwick Boseman May Have Hinted About Cancer Battle In 2017 Interview

Chadwick Boseman was notoriously private, but he may have hinted about having cancer in an interview three years ago.

On Friday, Huffington Post writer Matthew Jacobs shared a screenshot of a portion of his 2017 interview with Boseman on Twitter. At the time, the actor filmed several movies back-to-back and needed to bulk up and slim down for the roles he portrayed.

"I interviewed Chadwick Boseman in 2017, and to think he was going through cancer while satisfying the physical demands of a Marvel movie," Jacobs wrote, sharing a link to their interview.

During the interview, Jacobs asked Boseman about his struggles in preparing for his superhero role in "Black Panther" and his role as a lawyer and civil rights activist in the biographical legal drama "Marshall."

"You came off of one Black Panther project, did 'Marshall' and then made another 'Black Panther' movie. Did you bulk up, slim down and then bulk up again?" Jacobs asked.

"Right. Yeah, yeah, yeah," Boseman responded, nodding his head and looking exhausted, the reporter noted.

When the reporter commented that Boseman had been through the wringer, the actor replied, "Oh, you don’t even know. You have no idea. One day I’ll live to tell the story."

Boseman had already been fighting cancer for about a year or so at the time. The "Black Panther" actor succumbed to colon cancer on Friday at the age of 43 four years after he was diagnosed with the disease.

In a statement announcing his passing, Boseman's family also confirmed that he married his longtime love, Taylor Simone Ledward, in the final months of his life. "He died in his home, with his wife and family by his side," Boseman's family wrote on Instagram.

But while Boseman kept his health struggles private, he broke down in tears as he spoke about children with terminal cancer in a clip that resurfaced following his death.

In 2018, Boseman opened up about his relationship with two young boys named Ian and Taylor, whom he said were "trying to hold on" for the release of "Black Panther" that year.

"It’s a humbling experience because you’re like, 'This can’t mean that much to them,' you know?" Boseman said during an interview with SiriusXM’s Sway Calloway. "But seeing how the world has taken us on, seeing how the movement is, how it’s taken on a life of its own, I realized that they anticipated something great."

"It put me back in the mind of being a kid, just to experience those two little boys’ anticipation of this movie. And when I found that they …" he said, before pausing as he couldn't hold back his tears. "So yeah, it means a lot."