The dancer's husband died by suicide in December 2022.
It took Allison Holker a while to want to dance after her husband, Stephen "tWitch" Boss', death. ET's Nischelle Turner spoke to the So You Think You Can Dance judge, who revealed that she didn't dance for months after her husband died by suicide in December 2022.
"I didn't dance for I wanna say almost five months after [Boss' death]. It took me a long time," Holker admitted to ET. "That was something that was just so close, obviously, to each and every memory I really share with Stephen. It kind of crosses the area of our life individually, and especially together. There was parts of me that didn't know if I was ready. It almost felt like, maybe if I dance for the first time it's my final release of him. I don't know if I was trying to hold onto him or if I was scared to share that with him. I'm not sure which one it was, but it took me a very long time to do it."
"I will say, I called my friend Brittany Russell and I was like, 'I think I'm ready to dance,' but I didn't want to do it alone. I was too scared to do it alone," she continued. "I called her... She came over and we danced."
Once Holker danced for the first time after her husband's death, she felt like she "got so much off of me."
"I actually felt so connected to Stephen. I felt so connected to myself and to him and my home," she said. "... It just took me a second to get there, but... it, for me, was healing. It gave me a sense of remembering who I am and who I still can be."
In the wake of Boss' death, Holker and her kids -- Weslie, 15, Maddox, 7, Zaia, 3 -- went through a "hard year." She's tried to navigate the challenges through a mix of serious conversations and movement.
"As a parent I've always tried to find that ebb and flow of serious conversations, being strict, and really creating a next generation with morals and stuff, but then also being like, 'OK we had the big talk. Can we just have some fun? You're still a kid,'" she said. "... Sometimes you gotta shake the actual emotion off physically."
With that in mind, Holker noted that "there's time where conversation isn't what's warranted or wanted." When that happens, Holker said she puts "on music and we go wild."
"In our house, when we start dancing, it’s just freedom. There's people on the counters, on the coffee table. I don't even care. You can be jumping and doing somersaults on the couch. I just allow my kids to be kids and express themselves through movement," she said. "You can feel so much angst leaving their body. I have found it to be a really healing thing for us individually. It's not just for the youngers... but it's also for Weslie, who's 15. She puts her coolness to the side and just lets loose. I have to admit, it's quite common to see that in our household."
Following Boss' death, Holker revealed that her relationship with her eldest child got even closer than it had been, something that she didn't think was possible.
"I truly would never think our relationship could be any closer and more fulfilled than it already was," Holker said of herself and Weslie. "She has been at my side through everything. We've experienced so much together and communicated so much with each other. She's got a very old soul."
"There's this thing between us that I'm always Mommy first but... this year there was a new side of her that came out that I didn't know. She is my protector now as well," she added. "I didn't want her to have to be that. I keep telling her, 'You're my daughter. You don't have to protect me'... but then I had to kind of put my guard down to allow her to be there, because she wanted to be that in any way she could."
Now, Holker said, "We're quite literally together every single day. I don't know a lot of girls that call their mother their best friend, but she calls me her best friend through and through. I just think it's something really special that I treasure. I'm really grateful that we've had each other through this."
It was Weslie who first inspired Holker to pen a children's book. After life got in the way, though, that dream project was put on the backburner. After Holker and Boss welcomed their two younger children, though, they returned to the former's original idea and wrote a children's book together. Now that book, Keep Dancing Through: A Boss Family Groove, is out in the world.
"That spark that I had with Weslie kind of reignited with all of us, which is really special," Holker explained. "... It's a way for my kids to look back on what we had. We had something so fantastic and so special. It takes you through a day of our life. I hope that this book, for my children and so many others, can really represent such a beautiful side of what we have and those beautiful memories and the way we walked through life."
Though the book was released after Boss' death, it is the exact same work that he and Holker did together.
"This was the book, every word, every illustration, and the title," Holker revealed. "I believe in God and I think God works in really wonderful, magical, mysterious ways."
"When we were talking about this book after 2022, I couldn't have been more grateful that this is where Stephen and I were together as individuals, and as a team, because we believed so much in affirmations," she added. "What we always believed was we were gonna keep dancing through. I'm gonna keep that messaging for my kids... I just think that the universe gave us something really special to hopefully help other people."
That, Holker believes, is her purpose for the years to come.
"This is the purpose I was supposed to be prepared for, to help as many other people as I can. I know I'm moving in the right direction," she said. "... Things have changed and shifted, but this is my time to start, this is my path. I want to start now. I try to teach my kids... you can't control your life, but learn to be the best self you can be walking through it, and hopefully bring people inside to walk it with you."
Keep Dancing Through: A Boss Family Groove is now available to purchase wherever books are sold.
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