Allison Holker has had a lot to process since the loss of her husband.
In December of 2022, we reported on Stephen “tWitch” Boss’ tragic passing.
Following his heartbreaking death by suicide, his loved ones discovered private pain that he kept to himself.
Part of that, his widow explains, was uncovering the addiction that he hid during life.
Stephen “tWitch” Boss and Allison Holker attend Critics Choice Association’s 5th Annual Celebration of Black Cinema & Television at Fairmont Century Plaza on December 05, 2022. (Photo Credit: Kevin Winter/Getty Images)
Allison Holker is speaking (and wrote a book) about her late husband’s tragic passing
In life, Stephen “tWitch” Boss was a co-executive producer of The Ellen DeGeneres Show and also a longtime DJ.
Speaking to People in a new interview, widow Allison Holker recalled finding a “cornucopia” of drugs hidden inside shoeboxes in her late husband’s closet.
She found mushrooms, pills, and “other substances I had to look up on my phone.”
“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 recalled. That was when they made the discovery.
“It was a really triggering moment for me,” she expressed, “because there were a lot of things I discovered in our closet that I did not know existed.”
Holker admitted: “It was very alarming to me to learn that there was so much happening that I had no clue [about].”
Allison Holker took time to process why her late husband hid so much
“It was a really scary moment in my life to figure that out,” Allison Holker reflected.
“But it also helped me process that he was going through so much and he was hiding so much,” she reasoned. “And there must have been a lot of shame in that.”
Holker spent nine years married to Boss. During that time, she had believed that they had “very honest” communication about marijuana. Her late husband would slip into the guest house to “recharge,” on which she commented: “And that was okay.”
Dancers Allison Holker and Stephen “tWitch” Boss attend the Fans Premiere of Illumination and Universal Pictures’ “Minions: The Rise of Gru” on June 25, 2022. (Photo Credit: VALERIE MACON/AFP via Getty Images)
“He was wrestling with a lot inside himself, and he was trying to self-medicate and cope with all those feelings,” Allison Holker sagely described. This, she reasoned, was “because he didn’t want to put it on anyone because he loved everyone so much.”
Another discovery after his passing were journal entries that alluded to sexual abuse during his childhood.
Speaking of her husband’s state of mind, Holker explained: “He didn’t want other people to take on his pain.”
At first, these secrets felt like a betrayal
“Reading Stephen’s journals … really gave me a better perspective of where he was in life and the type of things he was struggling with,” Allison Holker explained. “It did have me feel a lot of empathy towards him and sadness for all the pain that he was holding.”
Many might have kept their late loved one’s secrets, from the journal entries to the trove of drugs, instead of giving interviews and writing a book about it. (This Far: My Story of Love, Loss, and Embracing the Light comes out in February.)
However, Holker is sharing Boss’ struggles and her family’s grief. The reason is that she hopes that others can learn from this. If sharing Boss’ tragedy saves even just one person who is going through similar struggles, then it will be worth it.
