Allison Holker says late husband Stephen ‘tWitch’ Boss ‘never healed’ after Ayahuasca trip
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New information about Stephen “tWitch” Boss has come to light three years after the actor tragically died by suicide.
During an appearance on The Jamie Kern Lima Show podcast, Allison Holker said her late husband “never healed” after he went on an “Ayahuasca journey” before he died.
“I think it was a very big turning point for him. I feel like his heart was never really in the same place when he came back,” she said. “He could still find joy and he could still go day-by-day putting on his face and getting through the days, but there was something missing in his eyes.”
A powerful hallucinogenic brew made from rainforest plants, Ayahuasca has been used for centuries by indigenous communities in the Amazon in shamanic medicine.
The Alcohol and Drug Foundation states it can cause hallucinations and distorted senses that can affect a “person’s thinking, sense of time, and emotions.”
“It just kind of feels like he opened something up to himself that he never healed. And never fully escaped,” the 36-year-old dancer continued.
Holker went on to reflect on a few of her partner’s odd habits such as bringing her the same coffee in a Superman mug every morning at 7 a.m.
She said: “I used to think they were weird quirks and weird things, and he would tell people, ‘Yeah, I don’t let her come downstairs so I give her morning coffee.’ I used to laugh at it and be like, ‘He’s so sweet bringing me coffee.’ But really why wasn’t I allowed to come downstairs? Because he would be triggered.
“If I came downstairs before I’d be in trouble,” she remembered. “Now, looking back I’m like well I guess it’s not really a normal thing in a relationship and our kids also weren’t allowed to go downstairs. There was like an order in which things had to happen.”
Holker tied the knot with the former DJ for The Ellen DeGeneres Show in 2013. During their marriage, the couple welcomed two children: Maddox, nine, and Zaia, six. Boss also ended up adopting Holker’s 16-year-old daughter, Weslie Fowler.
Boss died in late December 2022. A note was found near the DJ’s body, leaving investigators to confirm his death was a suicide.
“That’s a really fine line I have to walk as a mother right now… because (the kids) are very hurt by their father’s decision,” Holker told Lima. “And they have a lot of triggers that they have to be in therapy now to really work through.
“But what I am impressed with is that they are doing the work, and they are putting in the time, and they are finding joy in life, and they are finding laughter again. But there’s a lot to unpack for them that they’ll have to deal with for the rest of their lives,” she continued.
Holker’s memoir, This Far: My Story of Love, Loss, and Embracing the Light, details her life before and after her husband’s death at age 40.
However, the So You Think You Can Dance judge faced criticism for sharing some of her late husband’s more intimate moments.
Still, Holker believes she made the right choice, wanting to use her experience to help guide others who may be enduring the same pain and loss.
“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,” she explained on Instagram this past January. “Just like you, I never really knew what happened, and even as I am trying to put the pieces together I will never really know.”
