Stephen "tWitch" Boss came to prominence as a dancer before becoming a fixture on
"The Ellen DeGeneres Show," but there's a whole lot more to him than what you see on
your screens. Follow along and find out more about tWitch and his life.
Obviously, if you're a famous celeb who works in the entertainment industry,
it makes sense that your home base would be in Los Angeles. To that end,
it's not surprising that Stephen "tWitch" Boss calls Los Angeles his
home — it's where "The Ellen DeGeneres Show" established its headquarters, after all.
However, tWitch is not a native of Southern California — far from it.
It turns out that the dancer hails from Montgomery, Alabama,
and he's proud of his hometown. In an interview with Kam Williams, he explained,
"Its history is very deep, and I'm so grateful to be from there. It really helps me in my
day-to-day life. It helped me establish my values, my base of who I am and how I feel about things."
He added that he hopes to establish a community center there someday.
Additionally, tWitch had the importance of faith instilled in him growing up, saying,
"I was raised religious, for the most part, which came with a spiritual component that
has continued. So, I've always had spirituality around me."
While the whole world knows who Boss is today, not everyone knows just how
he got his nickname. As it turns out, it was inspired by one of his first cars,
which was a hooptie that the dancer called Twitch. As he told AL.com,
"I took [the name] Twitch when I was about 20 years old because that was when I first started
dancing, going places and teaching dance, and a lot of my dance knowledge and a lot
of my dance thoughts took place in that car [...] Whether it was to Huntsville,
Tuscaloosa, Bessemer, Birmingham, whatever. I'd choreograph in the car."
In a chat with Kam Williams, tWitch also revealed that the moniker was
first bestowed on him during childhood, thanks to his propensity for movement.
Given the way that tWitch tends to dance, we can't think of a better nickname.
Do you wonder why tWitch ended up falling in love with dance in the first place?
It turns out that when he was young, he was a huge Michael Jackson fan,
and the King of Pop made quite the impression. tWitch told AL.com,
"I had the 'Bad' tape, I used to just let that run and dance my heart out. I had his VHS tape,
'Moonwalker' — that was in constant [rotation]."
He added that he still has "Moonwalker" memorized,
which shows just how enamored tWitch was with Michael.
Additionally, tWitch's love of the Jackson family spreads to Michael's
super incredible sister Janet Jackson, saying,
"And that fed into Janet [Jackson], and Janet used to dance as well.
There was this time in the '90s when everybody had dance in their videos."
Falling in love with dance is one thing, but making the decision to
shoot for the pros is quite another. As far as Stephen "tWitch" Boss is concerned,
that moment happened after he was cast in a high school production of the classic
musical "The Wiz." That's when he was introduced to other students who studied
at dance studios. This was a revelation for tWitch, proclaiming in an interview with Vibe,
"The moment I found that out, my whole [mind] was blown.
I started noticing background dancers in music videos and connecting the dots like,
'That's the same person. That means you can have a career in dancing.'"
As for what tWitch did to manifest his ambition, he knew that he had to catch up
with his peers — and that meant becoming a scholar of the art form. In his interview, he stated that,
"I was not classically trained before that. I went to college for dance so I
did take the basics of ballet, jazz, modern, a little bit of tap — I was so bad at tap."
Hey, you can't be good at everything!
In addition to his work on daytime television,
tWitch also has quite the film resume — and some of his roles might come as a surprise.
For starters, one of Boss's earliest silver screen jobs was appearing as a "Maybelle's
Store Dancer" in the 2007 John Travolta and Queen Latifah comedy "Hairspray."
After some smaller movie parts, tWitch danced his heart out in "Step Up Revolution," but
perhaps his biggest film to date is "Magic Mike XXL" with Channing Tatum and company
as a gorgeous adult dancer. All in all, that filmography is nothing to sneeze at!
You'd be hard-pressed to find a television fan who doesn't know who Stephen "tWitch" Boss is,
given how prominent he's become on daytime television. But before the fame,
tWitch had to figure out how to get his big break. That ended up
happening on "So You Think You Can Dance" all the way back in 2008.
"My name is Stephen Boss, aka tWitch, I'm 25 years old and I'm from Montgomery Alabama."
By the end of the season, tWitch became the runner-up for his incredible hip-hop dancing.
So how did it feel to take home those honors? According to a chat with Collider, he proclaimed,
"It was life-changing. In my particular case,
had I not made the show in Season 4, I would have gone into the Navy."
In fact, he attributes his enduring success to his turn on the reality show,
which really did change the trajectory of his career. He went on to say,
"Literally everything that's happening right now is a blessing and a gift. It's surreal.
Every life choice and everything that I've done, from then on out, happened at that crossroads."
Speaking of reality television competition shows,
"So You Think You Can Dance" wasn't tWitch's first rodeo. That actually happened many,
many years ago on a program that you might not even remember. He appeared on "Star Search," the
Ed McMahon-hosted program that ran from 1983 to 1995 and had a brief revival years later.
As for tWitch, he made it all the way to the semi-finals in 2003, which is an impressive run on
"Star Search." The dancer brought the funk as he performed to James Brown's rollicking hit "I Got
the Feeling." And while tWitch didn't take home the big prize, he certainly made an impression.
Let's face it — dancing is a lot of fun for the majority of us, whether
we're letting loose at a wedding or kicking off our shoes at the club with our friends.
And, of course, it's obviously something that tWitch thoroughly enjoys and does
often. But dance is more than just a fun activity for tWitch. He uses movement as
a form of genuine communication, as he mused in an interview with Collider,
"While I'm not a ridiculous wordsmith and I can't clearly verbalize the things that
I'm feeling sometimes, I'd say that I can emote how I feel by dancing, 100%
of the time, and fearlessly at that."
He views dancing as something that both transcends words and brings people together
as an art form that has evolved and developed for centuries. He elaborated by saying that,
"It removes you from this construct of the world that you have,
and it's a conversation that you're having with people."
What a beautiful notion.
Viewers of "The Ellen DeGeneres Show" all know that Boss is happily married to fellow dancer
Allison Holker. The pair first met during Season 2 of "So You Think You Can Dance," and as Holker
tells it, tWitch was completely oblivious to her unmistakable interest, revealing to Dance Spirit,
"I didn't just make one move — I made, like, 10 moves and he wasn't seeing them,
so I had to put myself out there even more. [...] I thought he was the cutest guy ever."
Still, Holker was so smitten that she could barely talk to tWitch,
which understandably contributed to the confusion.
After a series of false starts, it wasn't until the Season 7 wrap party for "So
You Think You Can Dance" that tWitch and Holker finally connected. As Holker said,
"I saw him at the other end of the room, and he pointed and did this little 'come
here' motion. We went upstairs and danced for three hours straight."
After that, the two finally acknowledged that there was something between them,
and the rest is history. Holker and tWitch got married in 2013,
as noted by her Instagram page, and they have been happily together ever since.
Like many couples who get together, tWitch and his wife Allison made the decision to have children.
But, before that, Holker had a daughter from her first marriage. She was understandably cautious
and protective of her when the pair started dating, but fortunately, her older daughter
and tWitch became fast friends when they met. As she said in an interview with Dance Spirit,
"Their relationship is so beautiful, it makes me want to cry. She loves him so much,
and he is such a good example of what a man should be."
Holker and tWitch would later go on to have two more children together. According to a
post on tWitch's Instagram page, they had a son and a daughter. Naturally, you can see
lots of adorably wholesome family photos on both tWitch's and Holker's Instagram pages.
On July 16, 2020, BuzzFeed News published an explosive article that was chock-full
of allegations that the work environment of "The Ellen DeGeneres Show" was toxic.
Ten former employees and one current employee regaled the outlet with stories about being
fired for taking sick days or attending funerals and being warned not to talk
to Ellen. One person got, quote, “fed up with comments about her race" and quit. All in all,
it was a damning report that framed DeGeneres' producers and managers as, well, rotten.
While there was significant fallout from the alleged revelations,
tWitch wasn't part of the chorus of accusations.
Instead, he defended "The Ellen DeGeneres Show" in his own way, telling E! News,
"You know, there hasn't been too many gigs where you feel it every
day and build a genuine love from front to back. And the audience,
being so happy to be there and ready to dance and ready to laugh and have a good time."
In the wake of the allegations directed at "The Ellen DeGeneres Show" published by BuzzFeed News,
the titular host took the time to apologize to anyone whom she wronged. And not surprisingly, big
changes were made to the talk show, which included some staff house cleaning of important producers.
In addition to the firings, however, was a significant hiring. Specifically,
Boss was promoted to co-executive producer in a move that seemed extremely logical.
After all, tWitch had been with the program for many years and arguably
brought some much-needed diversity to the upper management team.
In the summer of 2020, people took to the streets filled with outrage in response
to the murder of George Floyd at the hands of Minneapolis police officers.
As a Black man living in the United States, Boss was deeply impacted by
these events and made a call for serious change, proclaiming in an Instagram post,
"These acts are products of a system that needs to
be broken. To be infiltrated. But it has to happen after the headlines calm down."
tWitch followed up this message with other social media posts. He debunked
the "all lives matter" response, shared anti-racist reading recommendations,
supported Black-owned businesses, had important conversations about race,
demanded justice for victims of police violence, and much more.
"Oh and now you're kicking my stuff? That's police brutality!"
He also joined the Black Lives Matter protests and
is instilling this activism in the next generation, telling Entertainment Tonight,
"What we're trying to drive in with our children is that the world should be a place of equality,
love, acceptance and inclusion, and our daughter has a really great hold on that. [...] Hearing her
speak about what's going on in the world and what she and her friends are discussing — their outlook
and the way they talk makes us, as parents and even just as adults, very hopeful for the future."
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