Chadwick Boseman's Brother Accepts Actor's Disney Legend Honor at D23: 'We'll Always Love You'

Chadwick Boseman has reached Disney Legend status.

The late Black Panther actor was inducted into the decades-old tradition at the D23 Expo on Friday, along with Grey's Anatomy stars Ellen Pompeo and Patrick Dempsey, black-ish stars Tracee Ellis Ross and Anthony Anderson, Frozen cast members Kristen Bell, Idina Menzel, Jonathan Groff and Josh Gad, and more.

Accepting the award on his behalf was his brother Derrick Boseman, who said, according to Variety, "When I heard that Disney wanted to honor Chad, the first word that came to mind for me was the word honor."

"As I think about my brother and this honor that is being bestowed upon him, I wish that he was here to receive it," continued Derrick. "Him not being here has been a point of immense pain for my whole family. But as I think about him, I think about how he honored our parents. How he honored his family. How he honored even his friends, and he made sure that his friends had good careers. How he honored all the contracts that he signed."

Said Derrick, "He honored them with his blood, his sweat, his tears, as he played these roles and he was taking chemo at the same time."

RELATED: Chadwick Boseman Wins Posthumous Emmy Award for Voice-Over Role in Marvel's What If...? Series

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In his remarks, Derrick called his late brother "an amazing person," and added that "in Chad's case, it seems that life is imitating art."

"If we pay attention in this thing called storytelling, a story is being told to us all…. Thank you for honoring my brother," he added. "I want to say say: Chad, we'll always love you. And Mom and Dad will always love you. To me, Mom and Daddy are also legends because it takes a king and a queen to create a king."

Rick Rowell via Getty Chadwick Boseman

Boseman died of colon cancer in August 2020 at the age of 43.

During the Creative Arts Emmys ceremony over the weekend, Boseman won for his voiceover work as Star-Lord T'Challa in Marvel's series What If…? on Disney+. His wife Simone Ledward Boseman accepted the award on his behalf at Los Angeles' Microsoft Theater, speaking to the crowd about how her late husband recorded the role amid his private health battle.

Marvel/Disney/Kobal/Shutterstock

"When I learned that Chad was nominated for this award, I started thinking about everything that was going on when he was recording — everything that was going on in the world and in our world and just being in such awe of his commitment and his dedication," she said, according to The Hollywood Reporter.

"And what a beautifully aligned moment it really is that one of the last things he would work on would not only be revisiting a character that was so important to him and his career and to the world, but also that it be an exploration of something new, diving into a new potential future — particularly with everything he spoke about purpose and finding the reason that you are here on the planet on this very time," Simone continued. "You can't understand your purpose unless you're willing to ask, 'What if?' unless you're willing to say, 'What if the universe is conspiring in my favor, what if it's me?' "

Simone concluded, "Thank you so much for the honor. Chad would be so honored, and I'm honored on his behalf."