Chadwick Boseman was honored during the2022 Oscar nominations.
The late star, who was nominated last year for Best Actor inMa Rainey’s Black Bottom, was acknowledged during Tuesday morning’s announcements when, during the livestream, actress Phylicia Rashad presented the nominees for Best Actor with students at Howard University. Rashad, 73, is the dean of the Chadwick A. Boseman College of Fine Arts at Howard.
For more on the 2022 Oscar nominations, listen below toour daily podcast on PEOPLE Every Day.
Student John Woods III then announced the nominees, which included Denzel Washington forThe Tragedy of Macbeth.
Washington, 67, once quietly paid for Boseman and several of his Howard University classmates to attend an acting program at England’s Oxford University. In 2019, Bosemanshared the full storywhile honoring Washington before theMalcolm Xactor accepted the American Film Institute’s Lifetime Achievement Award.
Chadwick Boseman.Rick Rowell via Getty
Never miss a story — sign up forPEOPLE’s free daily newsletterto stay up-to-date on the best of what PEOPLE has to offer, from juicy celebrity news to compelling human interest stories.
“As fate would have it, I was one of the students that he paid for,” he continued at the time. “Imagine receiving the letter that your tuition for that summer was paid for and that your benefactor was none other than the dopest actor on the planet. … There is noBlack Pantherwithout Denzel Washington.”
Onthe Oscarsred carpet a year before that, Boseman opened up about the moment when he finally got a chance to thank Washington for his support.
RELATED VIDEO: Anthony Hopkins Honors Chadwick Boseman in Belated Oscars Speech: He Was ‘Taken from Us Far Too Early’
“It was a fun conversation. The first thing he said was, ‘You owe me money! I came to collect!’ " Bosemanrecalledto ABC’s Michael Strahan at the time. “It was so deep, I can’t even go into it right now. We sort of just talked about what’s been happening, what’s about to happen.”
TheBlack Pantherstardiedof colon cancer on Aug. 28, 2020, at age 43. He had been diagnosed with stage III colon cancer in 2016 and had battled it privately for four years as it progressed to stage IV.
In a statement after Boseman’s death,Washington honored the actor, saying, “He was a gentle soul and a brilliant artist who will stay with us for eternity through his iconic performances over his short yet illustrious career. God bless Chadwick Boseman.”
source: people.com
