The family of the late dancer Stephen “tWitch” Boss is taking issue with his widow Allison Holker’s new memoir. In an interview with CBS airing February 11, Boss’s mother and brother said Holker revealed private details about Boss by implying that he was a drug addict and he may have been sexually abused as a child. “That was his story to tell,” his mother said in the full interview below.
‘We’re a family’
February 7: Allison Holker has faced criticism for using the death of her husband, Stephen “tWitch” Boss, to promote her new memoir, and now Boss’s family is speaking out against her. The former dancer and Ellen DJ’s mother, Connie Boss Alexander, and younger brother, Dre Rose, told CBS their relationship with Holker has become strained over her memoir. Rose especially took issue with Holker’s January People cover, in which she claimed Boss was addicted to drugs and had written in a journal that he was sexually abused as a child. “I think people deserve the ability to share their story, I get that,” Rose said. “But to how it was presented and how it was on the cover of a magazine and there was a public, you know, launch or campaign about it — we shouldn’t have to find out about that in the media. We’re a family.”
In the teaser for the full interview, which airs February 11, Boss Alexander and Rose said they would both be interested in reading Boss’s journals themselves. “I feel, believe that there’s been a cherry-picking of things from the journal to reveal or share, and if we’re just going to be completely honest, talk about it all,” Rose said.
This is Boss Alexander and Rose’s first time speaking out about Holker’s memoir. However, Rose did previously share an Instagram post from Courtney Ann Platt, a friend of Boss’s who also knew Holker through So You Think You Can Dance. “This is by far the most tacky, classless, opportunistic act I have ever seen in my entire life,” Platt said of Holker’s People cover. She also claimed Holker made family and friends sign NDAs to attend Boss’s funeral and has treated Boss’s mother, Boss Alexander, “like garbage this entire time.”
‘His story to tell’
February 11: In their full CBS interview, Stephen “tWitch” Boss’s mother and brother said they felt Allison Holker violated Boss’s privacy through her memoir and People cover story. Specifically, they took issue with Holker saying she found a “cornucopia” of drugs after Boss died and revealing from his journals that he seemed to have been sexually abused as a child. “Immediately, it was, Oh my God,” Connie Boss Alexander, Boss’s mother, said of reading about the drugs. “And then it was, Ugh, this is going to be out there for the kids to see.” Boss’s autopsy did not show drugs in his system after his death, per CBS. Of the possible sexual abuse, Boss Alexander added, “That was his story to tell.”
Boss’s brother, Dre Rose, admitted that Boss had tried different drugs — but said there was no proof that what Holker found was his. “It’s hearsay, it’s someone else’s version,” Rose said. “And if that is the truth, there could’ve been a better way to bring that to the family, and then we discuss, ‘Oh, this,’ what that meant.”
Rose said Boss’s family has “extended our hand” to Holker since his death, but “there hasn’t been consistency.” He said they’ve been left “on read” by Holker, and CBS said Boss Alexander has only seen her grandchildren twice since Boss’s 2022 death. Rose and Boss Alexander both also confirmed they had to sign NDAs to attend Boss’s funeral, over worry that Boss’s grandfather had sold a story to a tabloid. “To make me sign a document to see the child that I brought into the world?” Boss Alexander said. “I can’t even put into words what that feels like.” In a new statement to CBS, Holker said Boss Alexander “has and will continue to be a positive and loving figure in” her children’s lives, adding she hopes they can “work together to keep Stephen’s memory alive.”
Rose, who worked with Boss, said Boss sometimes confided that he felt like he couldn’t talk to Holker about issues like impostor syndrome. “He felt silenced,” Rose said. When asked why Boss was gone, Rose said, “I think that’s a question for Allison.” He expanded, “I think she knows more than us because she was there. She knows his last known whereabouts, she knows the last conversation they had.”