Allison Holker: A Complete Life Story — The Dancer Who Kept Moving Through the Dark

Born February 6, 1988, Anoka County, Minnesota

There are people who seem to have been born in motion. Allison Holker is one of them. From the moment she stepped into a dance studio in Orem, Utah at nine years old, she has never really stopped moving — not through stardom, not through single motherhood, not through grief so immense it seemed capable of pulling the whole world down. She moved through all of it, and she kept dancing.

Her name became known to millions through So You Think You Can Dance, the competition show that launched her career and eventually gave her the great love of her life. It became synonymous with joy through her years alongside her husband Stephen “tWitch” Boss — a love story so full of warmth and laughter and movement that it seemed impossible to believe it could end. And then, on December 13, 2022, it did.

What Allison Holker did next — how she survived, how she grieved, how she raised three children in the shadow of that loss, how she eventually found love again, how she wrote a memoir that was both celebrated and controversial — is one of the most compelling stories in recent American entertainment. This is all of it, from the beginning.

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Allison Holker Early Life: Minnesota Roots and a Utah Childhood

Allison Renae Holker was born on February 6, 1988, in Anoka County, Minnesota — a community north of Minneapolis — to her parents David Lee Holker and Nikki Louise Holker. She grew up in a household that valued activity, and her earliest memories of winter involve her father creating a backyard ice rink every year so she and her brothers could skate. She learned to ice skate young, took figure skating classes, and played hockey with her brothers in the cold Minnesota air.

When she was nine years old, the family relocated to Orem, Utah, a city in Utah County at the foot of Mount Timpanogos, roughly 45 miles south of Salt Lake City. That move would change everything. Orem is where Allison discovered dance.

She enrolled at The Dance Club in Orem, a respected dance school, and from the moment she walked in, it was clear she had found her language. She trained in contemporary, ballet, jazz, tap, and hip-hop. By the time she was eleven, she was developing genuine technical skill in multiple disciplines — a breadth that would become one of the defining characteristics of her career. She received instruction from some of the most respected figures in the commercial dance world, including Travis Wall, Mia Michaels, Tyce Diorio, Kenny Ortega, and Louis Van Amstel.

She was also, by her mid-teens, teaching dance herself. The student had become an instructor before she was old enough to drive.

During her teenage years, her relationship with her church community — she grew up in a Mormon family — became complicated. In her 2025 memoir This Far, she revealed that she left her church during high school and received backlash from people in her community, writing: “I believed that I was a terrible person and that God hated me.” It was her first experience of the painful gap between the self she was becoming and the expectations of the world around her.

She graduated from Timpanogos High School in June 2006 — a school known for its performing arts programming — by which point her professional career had already begun in earnest.

The 2002 Winter Olympics: A Teenage Dancer on the World Stage

Long before she appeared on any television show, Allison Holker performed on one of the largest stages on earth. In 2002, when she was just 14 years old and the Olympic Winter Games were held in Salt Lake City, Utah, Allison was selected to perform in both the opening and closing ceremonies. She danced alongside the legendary band Earth, Wind and Fire, in front of a global audience numbering in the billions. It was an extraordinary accomplishment for a teenager — validation that her talent was not merely local or regional but genuinely world-class.

It was also, in retrospect, a preview of the career to come: Allison Holker at the center of something enormous, moving with precision and purpose, bringing joy to people who were watching.

Competition Years: National Titles and Early Recognition

Through the early 2000s, while still a high school student, Allison competed on the national dance circuit with remarkable success. Her wins include:

2004 — National Senior Performer of the Year, Company Dance (Co DANCE), a major national competition held in Colorado. This was her first national title and announced her as a genuine contender at the highest levels of competitive dance.

2005 — National Senior Outstanding Dancer, New York City Dance Alliance, one of the most prestigious honors in the competitive dance world, awarded at the annual New York City Dance Alliance Nationals.

These titles, combined with her Olympic ceremony performance, gave her a profile that set her apart when the next opportunity arrived.

So You Think You Can Dance, Season 2 (2006): The Breakthrough

In 2006, the Fox reality competition So You Think You Can Dance was in its second season, and a 18-year-old Allison Holker entered the audition process. SYTYCD, created and executive produced by Nigel Lythgoe and Simon Fuller, had debuted the previous year and was quickly establishing itself as the premier platform for serious dancers to reach a mainstream audience. Unlike American Idol, it demanded technical excellence in multiple styles, not just charisma.

Allison’s versatility made her a natural standout. She advanced through the competition, ultimately reaching the Top 8 — a quarter-finalist eliminated as the seventh female contestant. She also participated in the SYTYCD Season 2 nationwide tour, performing to sold-out crowds across the country. For a teenage dancer who had never been on national television, the exposure was transformational.

It was the beginning of a relationship with the show that would span more than a decade and define her professional identity.

Early Career Highlights: High School Musical, Christina Perri, and the Road

Between her SYTYCD Season 2 appearance and her return to the show as an All-Star, Allison accumulated a remarkable range of credits that demonstrated her versatility and work ethic.

High School Musical (2006) and High School Musical 2 (2007): She appeared as a dancer in both of Disney’s massively successful musical films, working under choreographer Kenny Ortega. High School Musical was a cultural phenomenon that reached hundreds of millions of young viewers worldwide. Being part of its ensemble — performing the high-energy dance sequences that defined the franchise’s visual identity — introduced Allison to an audience far beyond the dance competition world.

Ballroom with a Twist: She performed with this touring theatrical ballroom dance production, choreographed by the Dutch-American ballroom champion Louis Van Amstel (himself a Dancing with the Stars professional). The show combined ballroom dance with theatrical storytelling in an accessible live performance format.

Revolution (Off-Broadway): She was part of this acclaimed theatrical tap show, which brought her into the New York theater scene and expanded her stage performance experience.

PBS Special with Clay Aiken: She appeared in Tried and True, the PBS special featuring American Idol alumnus Clay Aiken, further broadening her television exposure.

“Jar of Hearts” Music Video by Christina Perri (2010): Perhaps her most-viewed credit from this era, Allison was a featured dancer in the emotionally resonant music video for Christina Perri’s breakthrough hit. The video, with its themes of heartbreak and freedom expressed through movement, showcased exactly the kind of contemporary dance that was Allison’s signature — technically precise but emotionally immediate.

Demi Lovato Backup Dancer (September–October 2011): She toured as one of Lovato’s backup dancers, performing for arena-scale audiences.

The X Factor USA: She was a backup dancer for the American version of Simon Cowell’s talent competition, working under choreographer Brian Friedman.

Canadian Ice Dancers Kaitlyn Weaver and Andrew Poje (2012): She worked as a choreographer for the Canadian ice dance team, illustrating that her creative contributions were already extending beyond performing into the construction of other artists’ work.

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SYTYCD All-Star (Seasons 7–11 and 14): The Return as a Master

When So You Think You Can Dance introduced the “All-Star” format in Season 7 (2010), pairing established professional dancers with new contestants rather than having professionals compete against each other, Allison Holker became a cornerstone of the show. She returned as an All-Star for Seasons 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, and 14 — a run of sustained excellence that made her one of the most familiar and beloved faces in the show’s history.

The All-Star format suited her perfectly. As an All-Star, Allison could focus entirely on the quality of the partnership and the performance rather than the anxiety of competition. She was consistently cast in the most demanding contemporary and theatrical routines, and she elevated every contestant she was paired with.

It was also through the All-Star format that something far more important happened: she met Stephen.

Falling in Love with tWitch: The Meeting, the Marriage, the Family

In Season 7 of So You Think You Can Dance (2010), both Allison Holker and Stephen “tWitch” Boss returned to the show as All-Stars. Stephen — a hip-hop dancer from Montgomery, Alabama who had finished as runner-up in Season 4 of SYTYCD in 2008, and who would go on to become the beloved DJ and co-executive producer of The Ellen DeGeneres Show — was one of the most magnetic performers in the show’s history. And he and Allison found their way toward each other.

Their early relationship developed out of a genuine friendship built on shared values, shared profession, and shared love of performing. Allison has described falling in love with him as something that came with a sense of recognition — that this was the person who understood her completely.

By 2013, they were ready to make it official. On December 13, 2013, Allison Holker and Stephen Boss were married in a ceremony at Villa San-Juliette Winery in Paso Robles, California — a vineyard owned by SYTYCD producer and judge Nigel Lythgoe, the man who had, in a sense, been responsible for bringing them both into each other’s orbit. It was an intimate, joyful wedding. The date — 12/13/13 — became a number that would take on a devastating second meaning nine years later.

Stephen adopted Allison’s daughter Weslie, who was five years old at the time of the wedding, making the family officially whole from the very beginning.

Together, Allison and Stephen had two children:

Maddox Laurel Boss, born March 2016 — their son, whose arrival prompted Allison to step back from Dancing with the Stars after Season 23 to prioritize family.

Zaia Boss, born November 2019 — their youngest daughter, whose arrival was announced during a Mother’s Day special on The Ellen DeGeneres Show and whose gender reveal in August 2019 delighted their social media following.

Their family of five became one of the most-followed in the entertainment world — not because of manufactured celebrity, but because of the genuine warmth and joy that radiated from everything they shared publicly. Their home, Allison said, was “like a choreographed dance.”

Weslie Renae Fowler: Allison’s First Daughter

Before Stephen, before the television fame of Dancing with the Stars, before all of it, Allison Holker became a mother. Her daughter Weslie Renae Fowler was born in May 2008, when Allison was 20 years old, from a previous relationship.

Allison has spoken candidly about the challenges and the unexpected gifts of early single motherhood. She built her entire dance career — the All-Star appearances, the national tours, the choreography work — while raising Weslie largely on her own. She has described the entertainment industry as “hostile to working moms,” and her determination to succeed within that system while being fully present as a mother is one of the less-celebrated but most significant dimensions of her professional story.

When Stephen entered their lives, he embraced Weslie without reservation, adopting her legally and raising her as his own daughter. Weslie, who was 14 at the time of Stephen’s death in 2022, has occasionally appeared on her mother’s social media and in public tributes to her father. She is now 17 years old.

Dancing with the Stars (Seasons 19–23): The Professional Dancer in the Spotlight

In August 2014, Allison Holker was announced as one of the twelve professional dancers joining the cast of Dancing with the Stars Season 19 on ABC — a significant career step that put her in front of a mainstream primetime audience every week. The announcement was somewhat controversial among ballroom purists, because Allison’s background was in contemporary dance rather than Latin or standard ballroom. She addressed the criticism directly and characteristically: by working hard and becoming excellent.

Her DWTS record across four seasons tells its own story:

Season 19 (2014): Partnered with actor Jonathan Bennett (Mean Girls). They finished 9th, eliminated in Week 6.

Season 20 (2015): Partnered with singer and actor Riker Lynch of the band R5. This was the season that established Allison as a genuine star of the show. She and Riker developed extraordinary chemistry, and their contemporary routines — dramatic, athletically demanding, emotionally expressive — consistently earned among the season’s highest scores. They made it all the way to the finale, finishing in second place. It remains one of the most fondly remembered DWTS partnerships of the show’s run.

Season 21 (2015): Partnered with singer Andy Grammer. They finished 7th.

Season 23 (2016): Partnered with legendary musician Babyface (Kenneth Edmonds). They finished 11th. Shortly after this season concluded, Allison announced it would be her last — she had recently given birth to Maddox and wanted to be present for her family.

She also earned an Emmy nomination for Outstanding Choreography in 2013 (alongside Derek Hough, for their work on SYTYCD), and was part of a group of nominated choreographers who performed at the Primetime Emmy Awards with Neil Patrick Harris. The Emmy nomination was a marker of how seriously the professional world regarded her creative contributions, not just her performance.

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Hit the Floor, Make Your Move, and the Acting Career

Allison’s career extended beyond dancing into acting, though she has always been candid that performance is her primary love.

Make Your Move (2013): A romantic drama film in which she played the dancer Gina — a genuine acting role, not a background dance credit — that gave her screen time and demonstrated she could carry a narrative as well as a routine.

Hit the Floor (2013–2016): She had a recurring role in this VH1 sports drama as a Los Angeles Devil Girl cheerleader/dancer. The show ran for multiple seasons and was popular enough to develop a dedicated fan following.

Design Star: Next Gen (HGTV): She served as host of HGTV’s popular competition series for interior designers, renovators, and social media personalities — a significant hosting credit that put her in front of the home-improvement audience.

Disney’s Fairy Tale Weddings (Freeform/Disney+): She and Stephen co-hosted this beloved reality series showcasing couples planning Disney-themed dream weddings, beginning in 2017. It was one of the most natural and joyful expressions of who they were as a couple — sharing in other people’s happiness, dancing together, bringing warmth to every moment.

E!’s The Funny Dance Show: Another co-hosting credit that demonstrated her comfort in the unscripted television space.

Dance Like a Boss (EllenTube): A digital series she created and co-hosted alongside tWitch, which aired on EllenTube and was produced in collaboration with The Ellen DeGeneres Show platform.

Her Relationship with The Ellen DeGeneres Show

For years, one of the most central figures in Allison and Stephen’s professional world was Ellen DeGeneres. Stephen had been DJ and sometime guest host of The Ellen DeGeneres Show since 2014, eventually becoming a co-executive producer in 2020. Ellen was a close personal friend of the family, a creative collaborator, and a presence at some of the most significant moments of their lives.

When Stephen died, Ellen issued an immediate public statement saying she was “heartbroken.” After the death, Allison confirmed to People that Ellen had been a source of support in the difficult aftermath. They have maintained a relationship, though neither has spoken extensively about what it became following the grief and the years of transition.

Allison’s connection to the Ellen universe — the Dance Like a Boss digital series, the Mother’s Day gender reveal announcement, the consistent social media presence on that platform — was an important professional chapter of her life and one she has navigated with grace.

December 13, 2022: The Day the Music Stopped

On December 13, 2022, Stephen Laurel Boss — tWitch — died by suicide at the age of 40. He was found at a hotel in Los Angeles. It was, exactly and heartbreakingly, the ninth anniversary of his wedding to Allison.

The news rippled through the entertainment world with the force of something almost physically impossible to absorb. For people who had watched him dance, who had seen him light up on camera, who had followed his family’s joy on social media, who knew him as the personification of warmth and positivity, the shock was profound and specific. He had seemed so happy. He had seemed to embody joy.

Allison’s initial statement was brief and devastating: “It is with the heaviest of hearts that I have to share my husband Stephen has left us. 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. He was the backbone of our family, the best husband and father, and an inspiration to his fans. To say he left a legacy would be an understatement, and his positive impact will continue to be felt.”

A week later, she posted to Instagram for the first time since his death — a selfie of the two of them smiling and embracing. “My ONE and ONLY,” she wrote. “Oh how my heart aches. We miss you so much.”

The official statement from the Los Angeles County Coroner confirmed suicide as the manner of death.

Grief, Children, and Learning to Survive

What followed was one of the most public grief journeys in recent memory — and one of the most honest.

Allison has said that the very first thing she had to figure out after Stephen’s death was not her own grief but how to talk to her children. Weslie was 14, Maddox was six, Zaia was three. She has described the conversations with them as among the most difficult things she has ever done, and also among the most important. She told Glamour that she says two affirmations to her kids every single day: “I’ll always show up” and “I’m capable of it.” She adds: “I also tell myself that every season — whether it’s good or bad — has an expiration date.”

She tried, in her words, to choose a different way for herself and the kids rather than going into a dark place. “I’m trying to teach them — and myself — that if you’re angry or sad, it doesn’t mean you’re a bad person. We’re coping together, and that requires trust and being really vulnerable.”

She sold the family’s home — purchased for $2.7 million — and bought a new two-story, 5,800-square-foot home in Studio City, California for $5 million, giving the children a fresh space without the weight of every memory in every corner.

On what would have been Stephen’s 41st birthday, in September 2023, the family visited his gravesite together, leaving flowers. Allison posted the photos with a tribute: “We honor our beautiful, sweet, kind and loving Stephen tWitch Laurel Boss. Forever on our hearts and minds, carrying us, guiding us and lifting us.”

She also began to understand things about her husband that she had not known while he was alive.

Discoveries After the Death: The Hidden Pain

In the weeks after Stephen’s death, while preparing for his funeral, Allison and a friend were going through his belongings in their shared closet when they discovered something that shattered her further. Hidden in shoeboxes were what she described as a “cornucopia” of substances — including pills, mushrooms, and things she had to look up on her phone. She had not known they were there. She had not known that dimension of his life at all.

She also found his journals and notebooks. Reading them gave her a window into the interior world of a man who had spent his entire public life projecting boundless joy while carrying, in Allison’s words, “a lot inside himself.” The journals revealed that Stephen had experienced significant childhood trauma, including what she describes as sexual abuse by a trusted male figure he had never identified or confronted, and that he had been self-medicating with substances for longer than she knew.

“He was trying to self-medicate and cope with all those feelings because he didn’t want to put it on anyone because he loved everyone so much,” she has said. “He didn’t want other people to take on his pain.”

The discoveries were simultaneously devastating and clarifying. They could not bring him back. But they helped her understand — at least partially — the architecture of a pain that had been invisible to almost everyone around him.

Move with Kindness Foundation and Advocacy Work

In the aftermath of Stephen’s death, Allison did not simply grieve privately. She became an advocate.

She founded the Move with Kindness Foundation, a mental health-focused nonprofit established in Stephen’s honor, dedicated to raising awareness about mental health, suicide prevention, and the importance of community support. All proceeds from her memoir This Far went directly to the foundation.

She became an ambassador for NAMI — the National Alliance on Mental Illness, bringing her platform and her personal experience to one of the country’s most important mental health organizations.

She also wrote a children’s book, Keep Dancing Through, intended to help young children understand grief and find comfort in movement and resilience. It was a distillation of everything she had been trying to teach Weslie, Maddox, and Zaia in the darkest months after their father’s death.

She has been consistent and clear in her public messaging: mental health can affect anyone. Happiness on the outside does not mean everything is fine on the inside. The person who seems most joyful in the room may be the person who needs the most help.

This Far: The Memoir (February 4, 2025)

On February 4, 2025, Allison Holker published This Far: My Story of Love, Loss, and Embracing the Light with Harper Select, an imprint of HarperCollins. She narrated the audiobook herself.

The memoir covers three interwoven subjects: her childhood and dance career; her love story with Stephen and their life together; and the brutal, disorienting, slowly-becoming-survivable journey of grief after his death. She was explicit about her intention: “I really hope I can be an advocate and a voice to people that feel alone or left behind. I want them to see that life can keep going.”

She acknowledged in the book that she had been deeply conflicted about how much to share of Stephen’s private life: “I was so conflicted about how much to share about Stephen’s final months. It’s his story, after all, and he closely guarded it while he was alive.” She ultimately decided that transparency served a larger purpose. “My hope is that we don’t need to lose another husband, brother, father, or friend to suicide.”

The book also revealed significant financial fallout from Stephen’s death. She disclosed that he had given away substantial sums of money to family and friends and had spent heavily on substances and art. The tax bill for the year he died amounted to $1 million, a figure that depleted his accounts entirely. Stephen’s death also put her in breach of contract with several business partners, causing brands to stop working with her.

The Controversy

The publication of This Far generated significant controversy, particularly around revelations about Stephen’s private struggles.

His family’s reaction was swift and painful. His mother, Connie Boss Alexander, spoke to CBS Mornings and expressed her grief over details she felt had been revealed without the family’s knowledge or consent — particularly the references to Stephen’s alleged childhood sexual abuse. “I guess my thought is, first of all, that was his story to tell,” she said. She also alleged that Holker’s team had required family members to sign non-disclosure agreements before attending his funeral.

Friends and colleagues also pushed back. Kelly Gibson, a dancer who had appeared on The Ellen DeGeneres Show, wrote publicly that the interview promoting the book “made me sad.” Courtney Ann Platt, who competed on SYTYCD with Stephen and attended the couple’s wedding, went further — characterizing Holker’s promotional interview as “a smear campaign” and describing the NDA situation at the funeral as deeply troubling. SYTYCD alum Comfort Fedoke also posted a critique, writing that Stephen was not present to defend himself.

Allison’s response addressed both the substance of the controversy and the criticism of her motives. She confirmed that all proceeds from the book would go to the Move with Kindness Foundation. She wrote directly to those who were hurt by the revelations: “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.” She said she hoped readers would see her intention was to celebrate the love she and Stephen had shared while also honoring the complexity of both their lives.

The book received a wide range of reviews — from readers who found it genuinely healing and courageous to those who felt it disclosed too much and did so without sufficient regard for Stephen’s family, his children, or his legacy. The Library Journal described it as “a celebration of the healing power of family and dance” that “shows how to heal from tragedy without wrapping everything up in a neat bow.”

What is beyond dispute is that This Far sparked important, uncomfortable conversations about grief, privacy, the right to tell one’s own story, and what families owe each other in the aftermath of suicide.

SYTYCD Return as Judge (Season 18, 2024)

In 2024, Allison returned to So You Think You Can Dance as a judge for Season 18 — a role that marked a new professional chapter and a full-circle moment. She had been a contestant on Season 2 eighteen years earlier, and now she was at the judging table, offering her expertise and insight to a new generation of dancers.

She described it as her “next chapter” and spoke openly in interviews about the complex emotions of returning to a show so deeply connected to her personal history. It was, by all accounts, a successful and meaningful return.

New Love: Adam Edmunds

In September 2024, Allison confirmed publicly what she had been navigating privately for some time: she had found love again.

Her new partner is Adam Edmunds, a chief executive officer at Entrata, a software development company based in Utah. The relationship had been underway for some time before she went public, and Allison described the process of opening her heart again as slow, deliberate, and full of uncertainty. “It is a new experience for me to navigate this, and it took a lot of time for me to feel ready,” she told People. “I didn’t know if I’d ever fall into this situation again.”

She chose her words carefully when talking about what she had found in Adam: “I’m extremely happy. I feel supported, seen, understood and fully loved. And I’m really, really grateful for that.”

There is a notable poetic symmetry in the man’s surname — Adam Edmunds sharing a last name with Babyface Kenneth Edmonds, Allison’s last Dancing with the Stars partner. Life has its patterns.

Physical Description, Net Worth, and Numbers

Allison Holker stands approximately 5 feet 2 inches tall and has maintained a professional dancer’s physique throughout her career — lean, strong, and built for the demands of athletic performance. She has blonde hair and brown eyes. She was 37 years old as of February 2026.

Her estimated net worth has been assessed at approximately $2 million to $10 million depending on the source, with the variation reflecting the difficulty of estimating earnings across television, dance, choreography, hosting, and licensing. The financial aftermath of Stephen’s death — including the $1 million tax liability she disclosed — meant that the financial security of their peak years was substantially depleted in the period immediately after 2022. She rebuilt.

Who Is Allison Holker Today?

As of early 2026, Allison Holker is 37 years old, living in Studio City, California with her three children — Weslie, now 17; Maddox, 9; and Zaia, 6. She has published a memoir. She has founded a nonprofit. She has written a children’s book. She has returned to So You Think You Can Dance as a judge. She has found love again. She is an ambassador for NAMI. She keeps working, keeps dancing, keeps showing up.

She wrote in the prologue of This Far: “I cannot — will not — let his decision define the rest of my life. I have come this far, with milestones and milestones to go.”