Jess Hilarious Regrets Trolling Chadwick Boseman Before His Death

Marc Griffin
·2 min read
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Jess Hilarious regrets joking about Chadwick Boseman’s health shortly before his death. During an interview with the Pivot Podcast, the comedian spoke about trolling the Black Panther actor.

Boseman looked noticeably different as he approached the end of his battle with colon cancer in 2020. Some fans began speculating what was going on during this period in his life as he kept his diagnosis a secret. 

Other people, like Jess, used the opportunity to troll the actor, who looked vastly different than the cinematic heroes he portrayed. Jess expressed that seeing Chadwick die after she trolled his appearance led her to rethink her approach to comedy.

“I was gon’ stop doing Jess with the Mess because all I do is riff on people,” she expressed. “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 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 away.”

She then explained that his death shocked her. So much so that The Breakfast Club co-host thought about dropping her segment altogether. Jess Hilarious also recalled taking accountability for her actions after seeing the overwhelming wave of backlash online.

“I [didn’t] care how people looked at me. How I looked at myself was crazy,” she added. “[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… I deserve all of that [backlash]. He was so unproblematic. That’s the only thing I regret.”

Chadwick Boseman sadly died in August 2020. He passed away three months after Jess Hilarious’ infamous joke fiasco. The acclaimed actor was 43. Around that time, Jess would comment on the status of her Jess with the Mess segment. She told a fan that she was “tired of talking about people.” Hilarious also acknowledged that her fanbase loves it but stated she needed to step away from that energy.

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