Allison Holker’s teenage daughter, Weslie Renae, is talking out about her “irreplaceable” relationship with late stepdad Stephen “tWitch” Boss and addressing criticisms of her household — from why she doesn’t use his surname to why her mother requested his household signal funeral NDAs.
Greater than two years after Boss died by suicide in 2022 at age 40, on-line criticisms of Holker, 36 — and what she chooses to share about her late husband’s life and struggles — have ramped up because the mother of three prepares to launch her upcoming memoir, This Far: My Story of Love, Loss, and Embracing the Gentle in February.
In response, Holker’s 16-year-old daughter determined to handle the claims leveled towards her household in a stay video on Instagram on Friday, Jan. 10. Weslie, whom Holker welcomed previous to her relationship with Boss, started the video in regards to the late dancer by calling the “hate” she and her mother are experiencing baseless and “hurtful” to her siblings — Holker and Boss’s youngsters Maddox Laurel, 8, and Zaia, 5.
“My stepdad’s been gone for 2 years and I am nonetheless getting hate feedback … it is simply sophisticated and for no cause, as a result of this isn’t only a social media gig, that is actually my life,” Weslie defined, including that she’s “sick of getting hate feedback and seeing my mother get hate for actually dropping the individual that she loves.”
Stephen tWitch Boss/Instagram
As for her personal relationship together with her late stepdad, she mentioned “that is my dad — this isn’t a joke to me.”
“For 13 years, my dad and mom had been collectively, and for 13 years he was the particular person I might go to about all the pieces,” she mentioned of Boss. “He is the particular person I might cry to. He’d wake me up each morning, we might get breakfast. He is the individual that I might see when he got here house from work with. We lived in the identical 4 partitions and now I am getting hate for him leaving, and I do not get it. It is hurtful.”
“And I assume I am attempting to explain our relationship as a result of I see individuals saying that it isn’t my place as a result of I am not his organic daughter, however he by no means made me really feel like something in addition to his daughter,” she continued. “I simply suppose it speaks for who he was and no one’s sitting up right here attempting to bash him. He was particular person.”
As for why she doesn’t use Boss as her surname on social media or basically, Weslie defined that it has nothing to do with their father-daughter relationship. “My authorized final title is not even what’s my deal with,” she mentioned. “It is simply my center title as a result of I do not go by ‘Boss’ or my final title and I by no means have.”
Weslie, her siblings, Holker and Boss had been known as “the Boss household” and that’s “the title that my siblings are going to have and that is what they will keep on,” she defined, “however even Stephen’s household, like his dad and mom, they do not have the final title Boss.”
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Allison Holker/Instagram
Past her private relationship with Boss — and her mother’s — Weslie additionally addressed a current declare from the late dancer’s household, who alleged that Holker made them signal an NDA earlier than they might attend his funeral.
“Principally, someday we had an open casket viewing for Stephen. We had a funeral after which we had a wake, and my mother requested for NDAs to be signed after we had been seeing Stephen’s physique as a result of God forbid any person that went to that took a photograph of Stephen and put it on the web or shared it with any person else — that is the kind of issues that NDAs are for,” she defined.
“It isn’t so you may by no means speak about Stephen, you may’t ever speak about you grieving him, you may’t submit about it. That is not what it’s. And for all of the individuals saying it, I simply really feel such as you’re uneducated,” Weslie continued, including that she’s “fed up as a result of NDAs are so vital.”
“Should you guys do not agree, that is cool. I am grateful for my mother ensuring that everyone signed NDAs and he or she put up that rule,” she mentioned. “But additionally regardless, some individuals did not even signal the NDAs and my mother was lenient as a result of she understands on the finish of the day, that is household, so that you all need to disrespect her and he or she’s nonetheless good, she’s nonetheless form, she’s nonetheless forgiving.”
The present dialogue across the NDAs is “annoying,” Weslie went on to say, as a result of “that entire day was presupposed to be lovely. And as an alternative it was lower than that. We had been going to say our goodbyes and as an alternative individuals had been yelling at one another and bashing my mother.”
Elsewhere within the video, the teenager additionally defended her mother from on-line criticisms about the best way she has opened up about Boss’s psychological well being and habit struggles forward of the discharge of This Far.
“My mother will get known as a assassin. They are saying that she’s cash hungry. They are saying that she wants extra fame. That is not how my mother is,” she defined. “Belief me after I say my mother is nice, she would not want that.”
Momodu Mansaray/Getty
The 16-year-old completed her video by each reiterating her love for Boss and requesting respect for the best way her household is mentioned on-line, notably for her youthful siblings’ sake.
“No matter you all need to push on social media, I will develop up seeing it, my siblings are going to develop up seeing it. And in addition they will need to kind their very own opinion of who their dad was,” she mentioned. “And we solely discuss him in such a stupendous mild. I liked him. I’ve nothing damaging to say about him in addition to I believe that he made an unlucky choice and it is unexplainable.”
“However this is the factor,” she mentioned. “My siblings, they’re robust children and my mother’s elevating them, elevating them to be so robust. I’m already my very own particular person, however I have been this manner. They’re rising up with one guardian and to see that one guardian get torn down, it is loopy. I do not get it. I do not get it as a result of my mother is all now we have.”
“We now have different household, now we have different individuals we will go to, however by means of this, my mother’s been our rock,” she continued. “So simply know that that is the kind of particular person you are tearing down, who’s been peaceable, who’s saved issues off the social media.”
As for sister Zaia and brother Maddox — who Weslie mentioned is “attending to the age the place he is capable of understand issues” — she mentioned, “I simply don’t need social media battles to infringe on how they see their dad or how they see their mother.”
Allison Holker/Instagram
“They want their mother they usually already misplaced one guardian,” she mentioned of her siblings. “They cannot lose one other one.”
And, regardless of issues and criticisms about how Holker has mentioned Boss within the media or her upcoming memoir, Weslie assured that “that is to not ever bash who Stephen was — it is actually my mother telling her story, and her story can be nonetheless going to proceed.”
Plus, Weslie added of her stepdad, “My relationship with Stephen is irreplaceable. And that is simply how I see it.”
Should you or somebody is contemplating suicide, please contact the 988 Suicide and Disaster Lifeline by dialing 988, textual content “STRENGTH” to the Disaster Textual content Line at 741741 or go to 988lifeline.org.
