Chadwick Boseman's Parents Move to Oust Widow From Estate Control Amid Fraud Allegations

A legal battle has erupted over Chadwick Boseman's estate, as the late actor's parents move to strip his widow of her role managing his assets, accusing her of stonewalling the family and mishandling a company built around his name and legacy.

Leroy and Carolyn Boseman filed a petition in California state court alleging that Simone Ledward Boseman violated a prior court order requiring distribution of estate funds and has mismanaged Chadwick Boseman Inc., the entity that controls rights to the actor's image and unproduced work.

The filing, submitted July 17 by Boseman's brothers on his parents' behalf, seeks to hold Ledward Boseman in contempt and asks the court for an injunction preventing her from making unilateral decisions over property that belongs, in part, to the rest of the family.

Boseman died in August 2020 at age 43 after a private battle with colon cancer, leaving no will. Under California intestacy law, his estate was split evenly between his widow and his parents, with Ledward Boseman receiving half and Leroy and Carolyn splitting the remaining fifty percent between them.

The estate is valued at approximately $3.8 million and includes cash holdings, retirement accounts, a long-term care insurance policy, and Chadwick Boseman Inc. itself.

The petition paints a picture of an estate that has sat unresolved for nearly six years. According to the filing, Ledward Boseman has neither completed distribution of the estate's assets nor filed the paperwork necessary to be formally discharged from her duties as administrator, despite continuing to exercise what the document calls complete control over its holdings.

Among the specific grievances: a $40,000 insurance policy owed to Carolyn Boseman under a 2022 court order that was never paid out, along with unresolved SAG-AFTRA residual payments and a bank account the family says was never disclosed to them.

The dispute extends beyond cash and policies into the more contentious territory of Boseman's public legacy. Chadwick Boseman Inc., which holds rights tied to the actor's name, likeness, and intellectual property, is jointly owned by Ledward Boseman and his parents in equal fifty-fifty shares.

The petition claims Ledward Boseman named herself CEO of the company without convening board meetings and has kept the rest of the family in the dark about its business dealings, including contracts she allegedly entered into on the estate's behalf.

Those deals reportedly include an agreement with Words + Pictures Productions for a documentary chronicling Boseman's life, as well as a separate contract tied to producing Deep Azure, a play the actor wrote.

The parents argue that Ledward Boseman's conduct has put those very agreements in jeopardy. By presenting herself as the sole decision-maker over assets she only partially owns, the petition states, she risks defrauding business partners and exposing the contracts to rescission.

The filing further contends that the family has been shut out of potentially lucrative opportunities that could benefit Boseman's aging parents, and that ongoing uncertainty over control of the estate has bred distrust among the beneficiaries.

Beyond removing her as administrator, Leroy and Carolyn Boseman are asking the court to compel Ledward Boseman to produce a full accounting of every transaction she has overseen since being appointed to the role in 2020.

The petition sets up a public reckoning over how one of Hollywood's most mourned stars' estate has been handled in the years since his death, and whether the woman he married weeks before dying has honored her obligations to the rest of his family.