‘Denzel Washington paid for my college acting classes’ – Chadwick Boseman of ‘Black Panther’ reveals

Speaking on NBC’s ‘The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon’, ‘Black Panther‘ star Chadwick Boseman, revealed that Hollywood star Denzel Washington paid for his acting classes at Oxford University when he was a student.

Chadwick Boseman who got a chance to meet and thank Denzel Washington after the Rolling Stone article was published, said Denzel Washington paid part of his tuition through a scholarship program while he took a summer class studying drama at Oxford University.

He told Jimmy Fallon that Phylicia Rashad was teaching an acting class, and got famous donors to help the college kids get overseas:

I didn’t have money to pay for this, and so she [Rashad] got a few of her friends together and, you know, they paid for us to go. I didn’t know at first–when I came back–and I’ve basically been holding this secret my whole career, [but] when I came back I got a beneficiary letter. And it said, ‘Denzel Washington paid for you.’ You know, and I was like, ‘What?’

According to Black Panther Star who said he had always wanted to tell Denzel Washington about that moment, and how much the support meant to him as a college student, he was however very nearly unable to achieve his goal when a feisty Rolling Stone reporter asked him about Oxford before the premiere of Black Panther.

Chadwick Boseman said he didn’t want to reveal this publicly unless he had become more successful, but he however told the story in an interview with Rolling Stone magazine published in February, hoping that Denzel wouldn’t think he was trying to get something out of him.

“I’m sure he has no idea. It was random. I couldn’t wait to write my thank-you letter! … I’ve been waiting to meet him, so I can tell him.

The weird thing that happened is, I did the interview, and just before the movie came out we did the NY premiere and he came and I met him. Before the article came out, so I actually lived up to what I originally wanted to do.

Boseman told Fallon that Denzel joked about it when they met.

“Oh, so that’s why I’m here – you owe me money!” Washington told Boseman. “I came to collect!”

Here’s the video below;