Janelle Monae Recalls Her Last Dance With Chadwick Boseman at an Oscar Party Earlier This Year

Janelle Monae is looking back about all the times she spent with friend Chadwick Boseman, just a month after his untimely death due to colon cancer.

While promoting her new movie, Antebellum, the 34-year-old actress talked to Stephen Colbert on The Late Show about the special moments she was lucky to spend with the Black Panther star.

Janelle and Chadwick met through their mutual friend, actress Lupita Nyong’o, and she told a story of a night that she hosted them for dinner while they were filming in Atlanta.

“We ate, we listened to music,” she recalled. “I just remember Chadwick that night being so present. We were not talking about work; we were not talking about the past; we were just right there. He was playing drums. We were dancing.”

Janelle and Chadwick reunited at the 2020 Oscars earlier this year and she remembered he had surprised her with a dance there.

“He tapped me on my shoulder — I’ll never forget it — he tapped me and he said, ‘Let’s have this dance,’” she shared, speaking of the Oscars party they both attended. “And we danced for a good three, four minutes, smiling.”

She added, “I just remember that moment and I will always hold that dear to me and I will always try to live in the present because I saw him living in the present.”

Chadwick was laid to rest at the Welfare Baptist Church near his hometown in South Carolina earlier this month.