Allison Holker’s daughter, who was raised by her late stepdad, Stephen “tWitch” Boss, is defending her mom against allegations by Boss’ family and friends that Holker has “tarnished” his legacy while promoting her new memoir.
Though the late “Ellen DeGeneres Show” executive producer, who died by suicide at age 40 in December 2022, never formally adopted Weslie Fowler, the 16-year-old said he “raised me my entire life” and “never made me feel like anything but his daughter.”
In an Instagram Live on Friday, she dove into the recent “drama” between Boss’ family, friends and her mom, a judge on “So You Think You Can Dance.”
Weslie denied that Holker has in any way tried to keep Boss’ relatives from her or her half-siblings Maddox, 8, and Zaia, 5, and has instead been “making the effort” to keep the family in the kids’ lives.
As they “live in different states,” Weslie says she’s seen her stepdad’s family “more than when he was alive.” She accused Boss’ relatives of “trying to act different for social media,” as Holker and Boss’ mom, Connie Boss Alexander, are “very cordial” and “very nice” to one another offline.
“They were talking weekly. My mom sends photos of the kids and what we’re doing,” Weslie said.
The teen also addressed the nondisclosure agreements Holker made people sign before Boss’ funeral, explaining it was merely to prevent people from taking and sharing photos of his body at the viewing.
“That’s the type of thing that NDAs are for. It’s not so you can never talk about Stephen,” Weslie said, noting some didn’t sign and her mother was “lenient.”
“A lot of these people speaking out weren’t around, barely,” she added. “They say [Holker’s] money hungry, that she needs more fame. That’s not how my mom is. Trust me when I say, my mom’s good.”
Weslie also said Holker’s recent remarks about finding a “cornucopia” of drugs in a shoebox belonging to Boss were misunderstood.
“My mom never said that Stephen was an addict,” Weslie said. “But when you have two years after somebody committed suicide to question every interaction you had … obviously my mom’s like, ‘Maybe I should’ve paid more attention to him smoking weed.’”
The suicide of Boss’ own stepdad “stayed with him his entire life,” said Weslie, who implored people to “get your resources and go to therapy,” which she said Boss had been doing for years.
Ultimately, she finds the family drama to be “unnecessary” as “we’re never gonna get Stephen back.”
Tensions ratcheted up this week after People published an interview with Holker — tied to her upcoming memoir, “This Far: My Story of Love, Loss, and Embracing the Light” — in which she discussed finding those drugs and speculated Boss was “coping” with what she believed was childhood sexual abuse.
An autopsy found neither drugs nor alcohol in Boss’ system at the time of his death.
His response, his mom shared a statement earlier this week calling out the “misleading and hurtful claims” about Boss.
“We will not stand by while his name and legacy are tarnished,” she wrote in an Instagram post.
Holker maintains she’s merely trying “to share my own story” and “help other people.” She has said that her memoir’s proceeds will go toward the mental health foundation Move with Kindness, which she established in her late husband’s honor.