Chadwick Boseman died on Friday after quietly battling colon cancer for four years, and Patrick Mahomes saw the Black Panther star during his last interview. Boseman and Mahomes were featured in the HBO series The Shop: Uninterrupted, which originally aired on March 7. Over the weekend, reporters asked the Kansas City Chiefs quarterback about his relationship with Boseman.
“I’m obviously a huge fan of all of his work and then at the same time, I got to be on The Shop with him right after this season and I got to meet him, after that we had a conversation there,” Mahomes told reporters. “Then we went to the NBA All-Star Game and we sat right beside each other, his wife, my girlfriend, they talked. Just great people and obviously, rest in peace to him. He was a great person, so total respect and total fan of him and his work.”
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Mahomes and Boseman were on a panel that included Atlanta Hawks star point guard Trae Young; American rapper, singer, songwriter and record producer Roddy Ricch; actress, comedian and author Tiffany Haddish; agency executive, entrepreneur and author Steve Stoute; and marketing executive Paul Rivera. Maverick Carter hosted the show and various topics were discussed, including Kobe Bryant.
“It was crazy because we were sitting in the party talking about philosophy and poetry — that’s who he was. He was like, ‘This is what I’m into right now as an artist, not as a basketball player,’” Boseman said when talking about the first time he met the late Los Angeles Lakers star. “We started talking about it, I’m like ‘Yo we should do something together.’ He was applying the same type of focus that he’s applied to basketball, as a producer or director, whatever.”
Boseman is known for his role at T’Challa in Black Panther, but he had a strong connection in the sports world. In the film The Express: The Ernie Davis Story, Boseman played Floyd Little, a College Football and Pro Football Hall of Fame running back who took over for Davis at Syracuse. He then went on to play Jackie Robinson in the film 42 before playing the fictional character Vontae Mack, a top linebacker prospect looking to be drafted by the Cleveland Browns, in the NFL drama Draft Day.
