Former Dancing With The Stars pro Allison Holker, widow of Stephen “tWitch” Boss, gave a candid interview to People on Tuesday, and friends and family of the late DJ are unanimously enraged about it.
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Allison and Stephen met through reality TV, during Season 7 of So You Think You Can Dance?
The couple married in 2013, and remained together until Stephen’s death by suicide in December 2022.
After Stephen’s sudden demise at the age of 40, things were rocky between Allison and his family, and in December 2023, we covered statements made by his brother, Deondre Rose.
Particularly at issue were claims that Allison insisted Stephen’s family sign an NDA (non-disclosure agreement) as a condition of attending his funeral — an allegation that came roaring back after Allison’s People interview was published on January 7.
Allison is in the process of publishing a memoir, This Far, and her interview with People appeared to be promotional in nature.
It opened with claims that she uncovered several secrets Stephen had kept from her “hidden inside his shoeboxes,” namely a “cornucopia” of substances.
Allison said:
“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. 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.”
Later in the interview, People reported that Allison spent time “combing through” Stephen’s personal journals, identifying more secrets, which left her feeling “betrayed.”
She detailed some of Stephen’s private demons, exacerbating the ongoing discord between Allison and Stephen’s family members.
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Stephen’s Friends And Family Were Horrified By Allison’s Interview
As noted above, relations between Allison and Stephen’s family have apparently been strained since her NDA request, though the bad blood could go back further than that.
Stephen was highly-regarded in the entertainment business, and Allison’s People exclusive led to a number of intense statements from his friends and members of his family.
So You Think You Can Dance? alum Courtney Ann Platt shared a lengthy post on Instagram, alongside a screenshot of Allison during the interview, which began: “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[.]”
Courtney noted that she’d kept her mouth closed for a while, but Allison’s People interview prompted her to air her objections in a “public” manner, and she continued: “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.”
With respect to Allison’s revelations about Stephen’s private struggles ahead of the release of her memoir, Courtney said:
“This [interview] 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.”
Courtney indicated that the veracity of Allison’s claims was “actually beside the point,” adding: “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? This is what you want them to remember about him?”
She continued, claiming Allison was chasing publicity and asking why she “needed to do this … publishing a book shamelessly sharing the pages of your husband’s journal,” concluding:
“… [Stephen] 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.”
Comments on Courtney’s Instagram post were closed, but she was not the only friend or family member to make such a statement.
SYTYCD?’s Comfort Fedoke shared a remarkably similar statement on Facebook and Instagram as a carousel of images, alongside the hashtags #LLSLB (a memorial hashtag for Stephen Laurel Boss) and #Karma2025:
Like Courtney, Comfort appeared to have held back her anger for a while, until Allison’s People interview was published.
The second pane in her statement alleged that Allison’s behavior was “nothing short of questionable” from the moment Stephen died, and she said in part:
“For too long, I’ve stayed silent, quietly supporting [Stephen’s] family, even as I watched this all unfold. Signing NDAs under the guise of ‘protecting his name,’ only enabled you to twist the narrative.
“Since Stephen’s passing, your actions have been nothing short of questionable. Within 48 hours, you changed your last name back from Boss back to Holker on Instagram, hired a defense attorney, and altered your story about Stephen’s whereabouts.”
Comfort spoke about Allison’s relationship with Stephen’s mother and his family, citing “unbelievable behavior” on Allison’s part.
At the end of that section, she added: “How could someone who claims to love him treat his family this way?”
Comfort also said she was “left on read,” and that she had to go to lengths to find out about Stephen’s funeral.
Much of what she said was about what occurred between Stephen’s death and Allison’s interview, and of the latter, Comfort spoke of Stephen’s personal “battles”:
Love means protecting those battles, even in death, and carrying their struggles as your own — not using them as a platform.
At the end of her statement, Comfort cryptically added: “Something about all of this has felt off from the very beginning. If you’ve ever had that same feeling, you’re not alone.”
Comments on her post were turned off, but those on an adjacent Reel were supportive of her speaking out, and one person said: “Thank you for speaking up in your latest post, I think more than a few of us were wondering what was going on behind the scenes. You are not alone either 🫶”
Comfort shared another Reel by Stephen’s cousin, Zachary Boss Silas, who spoke for “Stephen’s natural family”:
Zachary’s Reel was heartbreaking, and he started off also talking about being forced to sign an NDA to attend the funeral and “see [his] cousin, whom [he] loved.”
He acknowledged that he wasn’t “a celebrity” and was thus unsure about whether the NDA was somehow normal, and he said that the “rhetoric” behind the NDA was, ostensibly, to preserve Stephen’s “legacy.”
In Zachary’s Reel, he articulates what seemed to be the reason the NDA came up in the other statements, too — he calmly but clearly asserted that Allison’s People interview could only serve to damage his cousin’s “legacy.”
Zachary mentioned the couple’s children, and questioned who “benefits” from disclosing his cousin’s secrets, asserting that no one benefits from Allison “dropping dimes” on her late husband.
Like Courtney and Comfort, Zachary viewed Allison’s disclosures as a betrayal of Stephen, and he said:
If the shoe was on the other foot, he wouldn’t be revealing the contents of your shoebox to the world.
Another cousin of Stephen’s, Elle, tweeted repeatedly about Allison’s interview, and said: “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 [Stephen’s] children. Only to exploit and LIE on my cousin. Hell no.”
Several friends and family members of Stephen’s vociferously disputed the claim he had a substance abuse problem, and on Reddit’s r/dancingwiththestars, an individual identifying himself as one of Stephen’s groomsmen shared a lengthy comment contradicting Allison’s claims.
He said in part: “Stephen never had a drug problem and he def didn’t end his own life because of what [Allison] ‘read’ in his journals … Let me make it clear that I DO NOT believe in any conspiracy theory around his death. I do believe he did it, but just not in the picture they’re trying to paint.”
At press time, all visible comments on People’s joint Instagram post with Allison were critical of the interview, and one commenter replied:
“Turning yourself into a victim after you make his entire family sign NDAs to attend the funeral and prevent his children from seeing their grandparents is intentional and you aren’t fooling anybody.
“You have a very dark and nasty spirit. You have everything to do with Twitch no longer being here with us.”
One person said: “I wonder what [Stephen] had to say about YOU in his journal.”
Another wrote: “Tell us ‘you weren’t his safe space’ without telling us[.]”
