Boseman brothers sue widow Taylor over locked $3M estate, 6 years after Black Panther death

Chadwick Boseman’s family just turned up the heat on a financial war that’s been simmering since his death in 2020.

His brothers, Kevin and Derrick Boseman, are asking a Los Angeles court to remove his widow, Taylor Simone Ledward Boseman, as administrator of his estate—and the allegations are serious. Kevin and Derrick Boseman filed legal documents Friday outlining a series of claims accusing Taylor Simone Ledward Boseman of mismanaging the estate and withholding information from the rest of the family. We’re talking more than $3 million held across various bank accounts that the family claims they can’t even access.

Here’s the problem: the brothers say Taylor has kept the family in the dark about the estate’s status despite a 2022 court order granting their parents, Leroy and Carolyn Boseman, a combined 50% share, with Taylor in control of the remaining half after Chadwick died without a will in 2020. That was four years ago. Four. And the brothers allege Taylor has still not finished distributing the estate’s assets and has continued to control it on her own without full transparency to the family.

The filing gets specific about what’s missing. The filing lists several specific items the brothers say remain unresolved: transferring a long term care insurance policy to their mother, closing and distributing funds from Chadwick’s bank accounts, accounting for SAG-AFTRA residual payments earned after his death, and collecting and distributing unclaimed property belonging to the late actor. But that’s just the official stuff. Chadwick’s estate spans movie residuals and royalties, his image and intellectual property rights, investments, insurance policies, bank accounts and personal belongings—all of it locked down.

This is the kind of situation that shouldn’t happen. Chadwick died on Aug. 28, 2020, from complications of colon cancer, but the estate drama didn’t start there. When he passed without a will, the courts had to step in. Back in 2022, Taylor requested that the court evenly distribute Boseman’s estate equally between her and her in-laws, Leroy and Carolyn Boseman—50% to her and the other half to his parents. That sounded fair enough on paper. But the brothers now argue Taylor has been using her half as a personal lockbox instead of fulfilling the court order.

What makes this messier is that Taylor has publicly positioned herself as the keeper of Chadwick’s flame. She’s done interviews, spoken at events, and kept his name alive in the culture. But behind the scenes, Kevin and Derrick ask the court to bar Taylor from signing major contracts involving Chadwick’s estate without the family’s approval, require her to hand over copies of all contracts related to the estate, and require her to pay the family’s attorney’s fees and legal costs. That suggests there are deals happening that the brothers don’t even know about.

Here’s what sticks: Probate battles over celebrity estates are nothing new, but this one has real stakes for a family still grieving. Chadwick Boseman’s family is disputing over his estate six years later—not because of greed, but because, according to the brothers, the widow is stonewalling them on assets a court already said they deserve. The court will have to decide if Taylor has been a responsible steward of one of Hollywood’s biggest legacies or if she’s been letting it collect dust.

The 16BARS take: Rich estates bring ugly family fights—that’s showbiz law 101. But what’s wild here is that Taylor went to court asking for a fair split, got it in writing with the judge’s stamp, and then allegedly just… sat on it. If the brothers’ allegations hold up, this isn’t a family dispute—it’s a breach of court order.