Stephen ‘tWitch’ Boss once spoke on overcoming hardships: Life ‘keeps going’
Stephen “tWitch” Boss shared an uplifting message about overcoming hardships five years before he tragically died by suicide.
“It’s a constant work in progress,” the former “Ellen” show DJ said in an episode of the “Aubrey Marcus Podcast” in 2017.
“You will make decisions that might seem right at the time but then they’re not. For me, it just helps to know that it keeps going — it does, no matter what — even if something seems very devastating like there’s some kind of force that’s going to keep going and it’s there for you to naturally access.”
Boss added that he would sometimes reflect and ask himself, “Wait a minute, but what was this back here that just happened to me?” and would then “make a choice to stay there” and “jump back into the program” of everyday life.
The “So You Think You Can Dance” alum did not go into detail about the difficulties he was dealing with, but shared how fatherhood added another level of pressure.
“I’m 35 years old, I am a father of two, I’m a husband, so it’s just like I have so many lives other than my own that I have to take account for in my choices, my actions, and all of that,” he said at the time.
“Sometimes, I’m faced to make a choice that is the best possible choice I can make at that given moment. Now, will it be the perfect choice? No. Will it cause me to fall? Maybe, and if so, you’ve got to get back up really, really quick and pick up the lesson of whatever that is and then keep it moving because that’s kind of what life does.”
Boss married wife Allison Holker in 2013. At the time of the podcast interview, the couple shared daughter Weslie, now 14, and son Maddox, now 6. They later welcomed another daughter, Zaia, now 3.
The pro dancer also told host Aubrey Marcus in the interview that he had “fallen in love” with the idea that the “bounce back doesn’t have to be romantic” after a hard time.
“Your bounce back from a perceived failure or whatever something that didn’t work out for you, your bounce back immediately doesn’t have to be like this Hollywood story,” Boss said.
“It doesn’t have to be, like, something that you tell your friends that at the end of it your friends are going to go, ‘Wow,’ because that’s another little ego trick I just recently found.”
“Like you’re writing the intro to a book,” Marcus then responded, to which Boss eerily replied with a laugh, “‘I had the gun in my hand’ … and meanwhile, it’s like some trivial s–t. I was looking at myself when I’ve talked about this, this is something I’ve for sure done.”
The “Real Dirty Dancing” host continued, “It’s super romantic. ‘It was hard, but I found my way out.’ I feel like because that’s kind of a natural cycle of life, then if you just trust the process and kind of allow it, then those highlight reels will come.”
Boss also spoke about how his art helped him deal with stressors, noting, “When you feel good, you dance.”
“No matter what, life is going to move forward,” he added.
Boss was found dead in a Los Angeles hotel room on Dec. 13 of an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound, according to TMZ. He was just 40 year old.
Holker released a statement on her husband’s passing on Wednesday, saying in part, “Stephen lit up every room he stepped into. He valued family, friends and community above all else and leading with love and light was everything to him.”
The “Dancing With the Stars” alum, 34, added, “Stephen, we love you, we miss you, and I will always save the last dance for you.”
Ellen DeGeneres, who worked closely with Boss from 2014 to 2022 on “The Ellen DeGeneres Show,” said she was “heartbroken” over his death.
The talk show host, 64, wrote on social media, “tWitch was pure love and light. He was my family, and I loved him with all my heart. I will miss him.”
If you or someone you know is affected by any of the issues raised in this story, call or text the Suicide & Crisis Lifeline at 988.
