Black Panther star Chadwick Boseman was diagnosed with colon cancer in 2016. The actor never spoke publicly about his illness and made numerous movies while fighting it. In 2020, however, Boseman lost the battle.
Months prior to his death, the actor posted a video to Instagram where he spoke about Operation 42, an initiative that aims to help hospitals serving African-American communities during the pandemic. In it, he appeared way, way thinner than most people were used to him being. And they noticed.
Some commenters were generally concerned, asking: “Are you ok?” but others — not so much. They made hurtful jokes and even started uploading memes, all of which were mocking the dramatic transformation Boseman had been going through.
One of those people were Jess Hilarious.
In the new episode of “The Pivot Podcast,” Jess discussed how cracking a joke at the actor’s expense led her to reevaluate her approach to her viral comedy bits.
She began by explaining, “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.”
“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,” added the newest co-host of “The Breakfast Club.”
“I [didn’t even] care how people looked at me. How I looked at myself was crazy… 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,” said Jess.
When she saw the backlash online, Jess accepted it, saying, “I deserve all of that… He was so unproblematic… That’s the only thing I regret.”
Jess Hilarious understands that “Funny is Funny”, as @OfficialCrowder often says. The @breakfastclubam host lives by that as well, but she does have one huge regret. Prior to Chadwick Boseman’s passing @jesshilarious saw a video posted by the late “Black Panther” actor. She… pic.twitter.com/OU9w0Myseg
— Ryan Clark (@Realrclark25) March 3, 2024
