Allison Holker: A Deep Exploration Of Whether She Is The Face and Brand Of Widowhood Or Simply Profiting From tWitch’s Death- And Is There A Right Or Wrong Way To Grieve Someone?

The word ‘tough’ couldn’t describe the immense sorrow a spouse goes through when their partner is ill. There’s the physical aspect of an illness such as Christopher Reeve’s spinal cord injury that left him paralyzed from the neck down. And theres the emotional aspect of an illness as well. Take Robin Williams as an example. He unalived himself in 2014 after his struggle with depression and anxiety. Following his death, it was reported that he was diagnosed with Lewy body dementia. In the newest documentary about Christopher Reeve’s life, ‘Super/Man: The Christopher Reeve Story’, Glenn Close, who co-starred with Williams in 1982’s ‘The World According to Garp’, said of their friendship, ‘I always felt that if Chris was still around, Robin would still be alive. Their friendship, their connection, is the stuff of legend. It not only endured, but became a life-giving force sustaining them both. On Friday evenings, Chris would literally swoop in, piloting his own plane, scoop Robin up, and away they would fly for the weekend. On Sunday, late afternoon, Chris would swoop back in and deliver Robin back — I have to say a little worse for wear. They were living the kind of fast and crazy life that our business can hand to you if you become a wildly famous phenomenon, practically overnight.’

Another well-known male public figure who unalived himself was Stephen ‘tWitch’ Boss. He did so in 2022. He was a professional dancer, having been a contestant on ‘So You Can Think You Can Dance’, and later, a DJ on ‘The Ellen DeGeneres Show’. He was first approached by DeGeneres after she saw him dance on the show to choreograph a dance for her for her daytime show, and he became her full-time DJ a few years later, which was a job he kept for 9 years until it went off the air in 2022. At the time of his death, he was back on the show that gave him his start in the limelight, only this time as a judge. Following his death, his wife, Allison Holker, took over his role. She, too, had previously appeared on the show as a contestant in 2006.

There’s much to be said about Allison Holker. She’s a dancer too. Mostly, however, she known to be Stephen Boss’ wife. In the months leading up to his death, the couple practically became a dancing sensation on social media. Together, they had 3 children. Boss adopted Holker’s oldest daughter, Weslie, from a previous relationship. They married in 2013 after having been together for 3 years. They seemed as happy as they could be even in the days leading up to his death. Just before, they celebrated their 9 year wedding anniversary, and tWitch’s last post on social media was a tribute to his wife as they celebrated their milestone.

tWitch’s untimely death came as a shock to everyone. No one had ever known he was even going through a tough time, let alone struggling with mental health. He was always making everyone else happy. On a personal level, his happy-go-lucky energy on ‘The Ellen DeGeneres Show’ always made me smile. I couldn’t get enough of him when I was going through a tough time myself. After his passing, Ellen DeGeneres said in her tribute to tWitch, ‘I love him so much. I miss him so much. And it’s a reminder every single day that you just don’t know what people are going through, because he was a happy guy, I thought, and I was really close to him. And he never shared that with me. So, that is sad, that he didn’t feel like he could find a way out and share that he was struggling. Because we all would have done anything we could to help him. I miss him every single day but I have amazing memories of him.’

DeGeneres was someone who’d worked with tWitch every single day, and she didn’t know. No one knew. Even his wife didn’t know of the struggles he faced, which is telling as to how private he truly was in his life. He was struggling with a high functioning depression, a term used to describe people who are able to continue with daily tasks while experiencing mental health challenges. Clinically, it goes undiagnosed. With that being said, Holker became the face of grief and men’s mental health since her husband’s passing. She has:

• Written a memoir – Holker’s memoir, ‘This Far: My Story of Love, Loss’, and Embracing the Light, shares her experiences with grief and her late husband’s struggles. 
• Started a mental health foundation – Holker started the Move With Kindness foundation in honor of her late husband, Stephen “tWitch” Boss. All proceeds from the memoir will go to the foundation. 
• Raised awareness – Holker has spoken about her experiences to raise awareness about mental health and the importance of seeking help.

In the two years since twitch’s passing, all I ever did was root for his wife’s healing. I couldn’t ever imagine losing a spouse in such a manner, especially for the fact that she had no idea that her husband was in such deep suffering that he felt he had no choice but to leave this earth. Then again, he did previously say something like this about dance, ‘Dance removes you from this construct of the world that you have, and it’s a conversation that you’re having with people. That’s how dance grew, as an art form.’ To me, this was a clear sign of an internal struggle he might’ve gone through.

In the two years since tWitch’s passing, I was rooting for his wife’s happiness. In August 2024, Holker made her new relationship with Adam Edmunds, the CEO of an Utah-based property management software company. Of her new romance with the entrepreneur, Holker told Us Weekly, ‘I never knew that I could have this again. I actually feel like I found such a great love and support system from someone. We understand each other and we’re so supportive of each other. He’s just someone that stepped into my life, and it’s been so beautiful and lovely. I’m proud to be a part of change and growth that we can find love and support and a new way for ourselves after [loss]. I hope to continue on that journey to maybe inspire other women to continue in their own lives.’

Over the course of these two years, Allison Holker somehow became the face of widowhood; until it all came crashing down. It was her interview with People magazine that changed all that. The interview was made to promote her upcoming memoir. She states that the book is about her grief as a widow, but the receipts state otherwise. In the book, she included portions of tWitch’s personal journals where he wrote about being sexually abused as a child. She spoke about his alleged drug use, which she only found about after his death when she went through his things in their closet with her friend. She referred to him as her EX-husband rather than her deceased husband. And when she spoke of her current boyfriend, she said that she was never this happy in a relationship beforehand.

In light of the interview, Holker posted an official statement on her Instagram page explaining why she exposed so much about her husband. She wrote, ‘To fans of Stephen and our family and friends. I want to be clear that my only intention in writing the book is to share my own story as well as part of my life with Stephen to help other people. Just like you, I never really knew what happened, and even as I am trying to put pieces together, I will never really know. If you decide to read the book, hopefully you’ll see my intention is to celebrate the love and life I shared with Stephen and our three beautiful children. And also the more complex aspects of both of our lives. I believe that if Stephen were able to choose, he would choose to have his story told if it meant saving even one life. Much love to all those who have supported our family these many years.’ Following the release of the 18-minutes-long interview that was so hard to watch, tWitch’s circle certainly had something to say. Courtney Ann Platt, a fellow dancer and a longtime friend of tWitch, was the first to have something to say. She wrote on her Instagram page:

‘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.

I was there the moment you both connected, I was there the day you got engaged, I stood by your side on your wedding day, I was in your home the day he died. I was by your side because your husband was my family. It didn’t matter how often we spoke, how often we saw each other. We were bonded IVever. This is by far the most tacky, classless, opportunistic act I have ever seen in my entire life. 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. Whether any of it is true or not is actually beside the point. This is how you protect the ‘Boss name’ you so quickly dropped on your social media platforms 48 hours after he passed? His legacy? This is how you protect his children from any further humiliation, hurt and despair? And you needed to do this? Get a journal, a therapist, a friend…but publishing a book shamelessly sharing the pages of your husband’s journal? People magazine? What a joke. Yes, he took his own life which is a fact all of us still can’t fathom and he was clearly having mental health issues, hurting so deeply and this is your example of empathy? Of your love. This smear campaign for a buck is absolutely not what he would have ever wanted. No matter how bad he was hurting. Not for second. You’re a living, breathing bulldozer. Stick to your own demons. Shame on you Allison, shame on your money hungry team. Let my friend Rest in Peace not your PR.’

Only the beginning…

Platt’s backlash marked the beginning of the end for Holker’s positive mantra on how to be ‘the perfect widow’. More and more people started opening up about Allison Holker’s VERY questionable behaviour since tWitch’s passing. That includes more of his peers from ‘So You Think You Can Dance’, his manager, who also managed Holker as a favour to twitch, former ‘The Ellen DeGeneres Show’ producer, Andy Lassner, as well as tWitch’s immediate family, including his mother, brother, and cousins. His cousin Darielle wrote on X, formerly known as Twitter, ‘Yeah idgaf about an NDA. This crazy woman made me and his actual family including sign an NDA just to even attend the funeral. She’s been trying to tarnish his legacy and refuses to let the Boss family see the children. Only to exploit and LIE on my cousin. Hell no. I’m so tired of keeping my f–king mouth shut bro. You did our family so mf dirty.’

tWitch’s mother, Connie, later wrote on Instagram, ‘Our family is absolutely appalled by the misleading and hurtful claims made about my son, Stephen Boss. As his mother, I will not let these accusations go unanswered. We will not stand by while his name and legacy are tarnished. For the last two years, I have remained quiet and away from the public eye to protect my family. My primary focus has been on healing and attempting to remain connected to my grandchildren. But when I read these dreadful claims about my baby, our beloved Stephen, I realized I could not stay silent any longer. Our family will ensure his name and memory are protected, and we are committed to defending his honor.’

Someone on social media labeled Holker as being the happiest widow, and I honestly couldn’t unsee that. It all suddenly made sense, especially with the new information that has been floating around about the actual events that unfolded following tWitch’s death. For instance, only a few months after twitch passed away, she started dating his close friend, and there are even candid pictures on the internet of them holding hands. Thereafter, tWitch’s brother leaked the phone call where Holker admitted to forcing his family to sign NDA’s. And I would do it again… every single day for the rest of my life if I needed to,’ she said. Her daughter, Weslie, did an Instagram Live to defend her mother. She said, ‘My mom asked for NDAs to be signed when we were seeing Stephen’s body because God forbid somebody that went to that took a photo of Stephen and put it on the internet or shared it with somebody else. That’s the type of this that NDAs are for. It’s not so you can never talk about Stephen. She’s still nice, she’s still kind, she’s still forgiving, but you have to know, like, even when Stephen was alive people that attended our events, they would have to sign NDAs. But now just because it’s my mom handling the paper, it’s different and it’s just annoying.’

She also said, ‘For 13 years, my parents were together, and for 13 years he was the person I would go to about everything. He was the person I would cry to, he’d wake me up every morning, we’d get breakfast. He was the person that I saw when he came home from work. It’s hurtful. And I guess I’m trying to describe our relationship because I see people saying that it’s not my place because I’m not his biological daughter, but he never made me feel like anything besides his daughter.’ She went on to say, ‘My mom gets called a murderer. They say that she’s money hungry. They say that she needs more fame. That’s not how my mom is. Trust me when I say my mom is good, she doesn’t need that. It’s literally my mom telling her story, and her story is also still going to continue. We only speak about him in such a beautiful light. I loved him. I have nothing negative to say about him besides I think that he made an unfortunate decision and it’s unexplainable.’

And last, but not least, she said, ‘My relationship with Stephen is irreplaceable.’

So many things…

There are so many things wrong here. It’s appalling, and it’s honestly embarrassing for me that I even supported such a woman’s success and ‘advocacy’ these past two years since his passing. I realize that because I was such a fan of tWitch, I automatically assumed that his wife was just as great of a person as he was. But clearly, that’s just not the case; at least not here. In fact, most of those closest to tWitch said he was unhappy with his wife and that he only stayed with her for the sake of the kids. Some even blamed her for his death. And some said he’d still be alive today if it’d not been for her.

I can’t say if all those things are true. I wasn’t in the relationship. What I can say, however, is that I know that she had absolutely no right to share such intimate details about her deceased husband. My online presence is about me. I don’t share intimate, or private information about my husband, my son, or any of immediate family. I can share details about them that have to do with me, such as my grief and sorrow. My husband and I have actually discussed what information I can or he’d rather not make public when it comes to him and our son. More so, our son can’t consent to me sharing details about him, so it’s even more important for me to keep him private. And when I write about my father-in-law, in particular a heavy subject on this blog, I write about his treatment of me, the reasons behind his treatment of me, and what it did to our family. And when I share details of him as a father, I share how it’s affected my life with my husband. He might call it sh*t talking. I call it the truth. My husband does too. And yet, I never share any private details about his life and endeavours.

And I KNOW that if my husband were to die and I shared intimate details about him and his life the way Holker did about tWitch, he’d make sure I’d be going to hell. To share his PERSONAL journals for the public to see is absolutely despicable. She did this for her own personal gain; not to spread awareness on mental health. We didn’t need to know that he was sexually assaulted as a child. She didn’t have to tarnish tWitch’s reputation and invade his privacy in his death to spread awareness on male mental health. And she said she wanted the world to see her as her own person without tWitch, and yet her entire book and her entire public persona is ABOUT tWitch and his death. She said she didn’t want to talk about tWitch publicly anymore and instead get the public to know her for her, and yet she’s making a name for herself out of his death.

I’d like to go back to the point that Holker said tWitch was a drug user. His entire family denied her allegation. They said he smoked weed, but never hard drugs. And I could certainly believe that. Others believe it too. tWitch’s autopsy was made public, and it clearly stated that he had no drugs in his system at the time of his death. Any drug addict will tell you that a drug addict will otherwise unalive him or herself and not have at least SOME drugs in his system. He didn’t even do weed at the time of his death, because if he did, he would’ve still had weed in his system during the autopsy findings.

tWitch was a good man…

He didn’t deserve this treatment from his widow following his passing. If he’s been so disrespected and tarnished in his death, I can’t even begin to imagine what their married life was like when he was alive. This was a man who took in another man’s daughter and treated her as his own. He adopted her and raised her. And now, that daughter is calling him by his name, belittling his role in her life, and tarnishing his reputation along with her mother by defending her mother’s behaviour following his passing.

What’s even sadder is that Holker has been keeping her children away from tWitch’s family following his passing and didn’t allow them the family to see the children in two years. November 2024 marked to be the first time any of his family saw the children since his funeral. And yet, in a video publicly posted online showed Holker making a toast during a family function praising twitch’s family and thanking them for being there for her and her family. I know a thing or two about keeping one’s child away from in-laws. I myself have done so in the past two years. My son deserves better than being surrounded by toxic behaviour. I’m protecting him, and I have all the reasons to do so. He deserves to be surrounded by love, nurture and care. That’s not what he will get out of being around some of my in-laws. I tried that. There were boundaries that were crossed, and my husband and I decided that there was only so much disrespect and selfishness that we, as family, will tolerate. But tWitch always seemed close with his immediate family. He always posted pictures with them and spoke highly of them. To me, it seems as though Holker keeping the kids away from tWitch’s family is a manipulative tactic of hers.

When I think of widowhood in the media and the entertainment industry, I automatically think of 3 women: Michelle Williams, who was in a relationship and had a child with Heath Ledger at the time of his death, Vanessa Bryant, who was married to and had children with Kobe Bryant at the time of his death, and Lea Michele, who was in a relationship with Cory Monteith at the time of his death. These 3 women have shown remarkable resilience and strength in their individual griefs, and an enormous impact on continuing their deceased ones’ legacies and keeping them alive.

Michelle Williams is an accomplished actress who’d been acting since her teens. Her most pivotal role to date is on the late 90’s and early 2000’s show, ‘Dawson’s Creek’, which co-starred James Van Der Beek, Joshua Jackson and Katie Holmes. Williams met Heath Ledger when they filmed ‘Brokeback Mountain’ together in 2004. She called that time in her life as a once-in-a-lifetime experience. Since his 2008 passing, Williams has rarely spoken of Heath Ledger. When she does, she speaks of her own grief and her experience being a single mother to their daughter, Matilda. She never spoke of his own personal struggles, she never shared any details of his passing, and she never shared any intimate details of their relationship and why it crumbled. In an interview years ago, she said herself that she would never share any details of their relationship publicly because he himself wasn’t here to defend himself and tell his side of the story. Ledger’s family, in turn, has done nothing but praise Williams in the years since Ledger’s passing.

I’d say that her best friend, Busy Philipps, who also starred on ‘Dawson’s Creek’ on its later seasons, shared more about the relationship between Williams and Ledger than Williams herself did. In her 2018 memoir, ‘This Will Only Hurt A Little’, Philipps wrote, ‘He and Michelle were in the process of separating at that point, and I felt sad for both of them but weirdly like something would be figured out and it wasn’t the end of the story for them. They were so young and that baby was the light of both of their lives. They were just working all the time and it was complicated. S— is always complicated. Especially when you’re twenty-eight. And movies stars. With a baby.’ In the years since, Williams married Thomas Kail and had two children.

Vanessa Bryant was married to Kobe Bryant between 2001 and 2020. Together they had four children. Their daughter Gianna also passed away in the helicopter crash that took Bryant’s life along with the others who travelled with them. In the 5 years that they’ve been gone, Bryant, along with her oldest daughter Natalia, has never shied away from speaking of her deceased husband and daughter. She’s never stopped talking about them and paying tribute to them and keeping their legacies alive. In the years since, she’s been grieved-shamed. People still show surprise when she says ‘still grieving’. But why? There’s no timeline for grief. There’s no handbook for grief. This is a woman who lost her husband AND daughter. No amount of money in the world will bring them back. No one ever deserves to know what her grieving process looks like, especially as she still has small children to take care of while grieving not just one person, but two, one being her daughter. She previously told People magazine, ‘I can’t say that I’m strong every day. I can’t say that there aren’t days when I feel like I can’t survive to the next. This pain is unimaginable [but] you just have to get up and push forward. Lying in bed crying isn’t going to change the fact that my family will never be the same again. But getting out of bed and pushing forward is going to make the day better for my girls and for me. So that’s what I do. I guess the best way to describe it is that Kobe and Gigi motivate me to keep going. They inspire me to try harder and be better every day. Their love is unconditional and they motivate me in so many different ways.’ Since Kobe Bryant’s death, she took charge of his company and worked on his projects that were left unfinished.

And finally, there’s Lea Michele. She lost her boyfriend of a year and a half in 2013 due to a drug overdose. They also co-starred together on the hit series, ‘Glee’, and Monteith died just before production began on the 5th season. Her character, Rachel Berry was also grieving the loss of Finn Hudson, Monteith’s character on the show, simultaneously. In the years since, Michele has moved on with her life. She married Zandy Reich in 2019 and has 2 children. And nevertheless, she’s never shied away from paying tribute to her lost love. Every year on the anniversary of his passing, she posts loving tributes to him on social media. She’s written songs about him, most notably ‘If You Say So’, ‘Seven Days’ ‘You’re Mine’, ‘Getaway Car’, and ‘Hey You’. She talks about him at her concerts. She’s also talked about him in interviews, but when she does, she talks about her grief for him. In fact, in one interview, she made it clear that she’d never talk about his drug addiction or details of his struggles, but rather her love for him. In her first TV interview following his passing, Michele opened up to Ellen DeGeneres on her grief and said, ‘Work is no harder than being at home and being in the house and opening up a closet and seeing a pair of shoes. There’s this is grief goes with you everyday whatever you’re doing. I’m just trying to do my best for him because I know that that’s what he would have wanted and to just do my best and to you know, hopefully make something positive for where I go in the rest of my life.’

There’s no right or wrong way…

There’s certainly no right or wrong way to grieve a loved one. There’s no handbook or manual for that. Widowhood is complicated. Widowhood is complex. Widowhood is traumatic. There’s no one way to go through the notions of widowhood. There are key factors and categories in widowhood, according to psychology:

• Widows need to be listened to and heard.
• A handyman is gold, but a professional support system has to prove trustworthy.
• Secondary, or invisible, losses add to widows’ struggles.
• Widows are not always afforded respect, even from themselves.

We must not judge anyone’s struggle with widowhood. And nevertheless, it’s very hard not to judge someone as Allison Holker. Not for her grief or widowhood, but for her actions thereafter. Her publicly shaming her late husband. Her publicly tarnishing her husband’s name in the public. Her publicly sharing his darkest secrets to the world. Her lying to the world about his livelihood. Her publicly disrespecting him.

Finally, to end this blog entry on a high note, I want to share tWitch’s final words of encouragement to his fans. In one of his final Instagram posts, he wrote, ‘ You are always attracting the support and resources needed to complete your life vision. Trust that the Universe is working behind the scenes to move you closer to the fulfillment of your dreams. Don’t give up; keep going. You have what it takes to succeed. You’re not far from what you desire. It will manifest soon. Get ready to receive more than you can imagine.’