Cat Deeley is praising So You Think You Can Dance decide Allison Holker’s “healthy” outlook following the demise of her husband, Stephen “tWitch” Boss.
“She’s been very, very open about talking about tWitch and I think that is really healthy because, in actual fact, the only way to take a terribly, terribly devastating thing is to try and make it positive,” Deeley, 47, completely advised Us Weekly on Thursday, March 7, whereas discussing season 18 of the dance competitors. “That’s the only way you can process that as a human being. What she’s done is she’s turned it around and she’s like, ‘I am going to talk about it.’ And the more those lines of communication are open for everybody, and the more we discuss and the more we don’t hide away, I think the better it is for everybody — for everybody’s mental health and everybody watching at home and everybody on the show.”
Deeley, who started internet hosting SYTYCD throughout season 2 in 2006, additional famous that Holker, 36, has dealt with the devastating state of affairs “so beautifully.”
“We were talking about it the other day and I said, ‘I have to say you just [have] handled yourself with poise,’” she recalled.
Deeley has recognized Holker and Boss since their respective seasons of SYTYCD, which aired in 2006 and 2008. The couple, who wed in 2013, met on season 7 once they have been tapped as “All-Star” mentors for the primary time.
Boss died by suicide on the age of 40 in December 2022. He is survived by Holker and their three children: Weslie, 15, Maddox, 7, and Zaia, 3. (Weslie is Holker’s daughter from a earlier relationship, whom Boss adopted.)
Following Boss’ passing, the SYTYCD and dance communities rallied round Holker and her children to assist preserve his reminiscence alive.
“He was always just a super charming, super smart, incredibly loving, gentle man,” Deeley remembered of Boss, noting she has “so many” recollections with him. “He was always a big sweater, and I would say that, too. He’d come off stage and he’d be soaking wet and he’d be like, ‘No, no, I’m not going to hug you. I’m not going to.’ I’m like, ‘Come on, bring it in, bring it in.’”
A separate memorable encounter occurred after Deeley watched his aggressive solo routine to Midnight Touch’s ”Midas Touch.”
“Another time he was on stage and he’d done this routine and he got a grill in his mouth. I was like, ‘Come on, hand [it over]. I can be street in my British accent,’” she joked. “So I put his glasses on and his grill, everybody was like, ‘Ah!’ I was like, ‘Don’t care.’”
Holker joined the So You Think You Can Dance judging panel for season 18, which premiered on Monday, March 4, sitting subsequent to Maksim Chmerkovskiy and JoJo Siwa.
“[Allison’s] obviously got the experience of the show and she knows all of that too, but she’s also got a lot of heart and she adds that dimension to it as well,” Deeley advised Us.
As Holker, Chmerkovskiy, 44, and Siwa, 20, seek for America’s Top Dancer, the contestants are in for a variety of latest challenges.
“So, there’s basically two massive changes to the show. The first … we’re going to put all the dancers into a house together so you get to know everybody,” Deeley teased to Us. “And the second big change is we’re going to set real-world challenges for the dancers. So essentially, who could come out off the show and be a professional dancer tomorrow? They’ll have challenges, like a tour challenge, a Broadway challenge, an ad campaign challenge … and [handle] all those different elements that you have to have to become a professional working dancer and be successful.”
So You Think You Can Dance airs Mondays on Fox at 7 p.m. ET.
With reporting by Christina Garibaldi