Woman Calls Stephen 'tWitch' Boss' Widow Allison Holker 'Diabolical' For How She's Handled Her Grief
Family and friends have spoken out against Allison Holker publicizing the intimate details of her late husband's mental health struggles.
DFree | Shutterstock It's been two years since dancer Stephen 'tWitch' Boss tragically took his own life after battling silently with his mental health. Now, his widow, Allison Holker, is speaking out about the days following Boss' passing and the things she discovered about her late husband that he even kept secret from her.
However, Holker's recent interview with People has elicited backlash from fans, Boss' former "So You Think You Can Dance" co-stars, and even members of his family for not only the interview but Holker's upcoming memoir "This Far: My Story of Love, Loss, and Embracing the Light," which tackles her life and Boss’ death by suicide. In a TikTok video, a woman named Michelle even accused Holker of handling her grief in a way that wasn't respectful to the memory of Boss.
A woman called Stephen 'tWitch' Boss' widow, Allison Holker, 'diabolical' after she spoke out about his personal issues.
In Michelle's video, she recapped Boss' career, his impact on fans, and his tragic death. She explained that Boss, from his persona on television and social media, seemed like such a bubbly, kind, and outgoing person. Because of his image and likability, his death hit hard, and fans were quick to offer sympathy to Holker because of their love for her husband.
"Everybody was like, 'Oh my God, this poor woman. She lost her husband, she lost the father to her children, her children lost their dad,' and everybody was feeling bad for her," Michelle said. "This woman has now gone on People and given an interview about tWitch and said that he had a severe drug problem and he took his own life because of his severe drug problem."
Michelle criticized Holker, claiming that it's "absolutely diabolical" for her to publicize private matters that Boss most likely never wanted to get out. Since he's no longer here to defend himself or speak out about it, it makes the tell-all interview even worse. From her perspective it was wrong for Holker to publicly disclose these intimate details about Boss' life.
Friends and family members of Boss have even spoken out against Holker as well.
The comments began cropping up on social media following Holker's recent interview with People. Holker admitted that she had found a hidden "cornucopia" of drugs, including mushrooms, pills, and "other substances" she had to "look up" inside his shoeboxes, which she found after his passing.
"I was with one of my really dear friends, and we were cleaning out the closet and picking out an outfit for him for the funeral," Holker told the outlet. "It was a really triggering moment for me because there were a lot of things I discovered in our closet that I did not know existed. It was very alarming to me to learn that there was so much happening that I had no clue [about]. It was a really scary moment in my life to figure that out, but it also helped me process that he was going through so much and he was hiding so much, and there must have been a lot of shame in that."
In Holker's memoir, she even shared pages of Boss' personal journal that she found after his death. In it, Boss detailed moments from his adolescence about possible sexual abuse that he faced at the hands of a family member. In response, a family friend named Courtney Ann Platt shared a photo of the story on her Instagram with a lengthy caption slamming the memoir and interview.
"Anyone who knows me, knows I go straight to source during a conflict and handle my business but since there’s clearly no shame in being so public, I haven’t said a word in two years but here I go," Platt, who had been there the day Holker and Boss got engaged and later when they got married, wrote. "We all had to sign some weird NDA to attend his funeral (even his own mother who you’ve treated like garbage this entire time and let’s just remember you wouldn’t have even had a husband if it wasn’t for her) not to share anything or ruin his name as if that was on anyone’s mind in the first place and here you go and write a book with all the dirty laundry smearing his name and attempting to dim the bright loyal, loving, light that was your husband, my friend."
Boss' brother, Dre Rose, shared Platt's post on his Instagram stories with the caption, "No lies told..." Rose has even reposted many other similar stories from others slamming the memoir and its claims.
Holker has since spoken out against the backlash that she's received.
In January 2024, Holker published a children's book, "Keep Dancing Through: A Boss Family Groove," and on "The School of Greatness" podcast, Holker talked about how she and Boss, who was named a co-author for the book, had been working on it back in 2021. Holker also addressed the way that she'd been grieving, according to USA Today.
"I am such a public figure that people have a lot of opinions in how I should be handling myself, how I should be handling the grief and what they expect to see, what they expect me to say, what they expect to hear from me," Holker said. "I've always been a person that I have to do things my way in my own pacing in my own time and that's going to come sometimes with a lot of emotion for other people."
She added, "And I think I've just had to challenge myself to stay my own course because I have to go through this at my time to be the best version of myself and the best version of my kids. And then I can come forward and use my voice and help as many people as I can."
Truthfully, grief is not a linear process, and it is not the same for everyone who has experienced it. You truly don't know how you'd react in a situation as devastating as the one Holker and her family are currently living through. It's unfair to accuse her of being "diabolical" when this might just be the way that she's attempting to cope and make sense of something as tragic as losing her husband, especially in such a horrific way.
At the end of the day, we can speculate and criticize, but we'll never know the pain that Holker has been feeling since the day when her entire life changed without her control.
Nia Tipton is a staff writer with a bachelor’s degree in creative writing and journalism who covers news and lifestyle topics that focus on psychology, relationships, and the human experience.