Allison Holker responds to critics of memoir about Stephen ‘tWitch’ Boss

Allison Holker is responding to family and friends of her late husband Stephen “tWitch” Boss after receiving criticism for her new memoir, This Far, which details his 2022 death.

“To fans of Stephen and our family and friends, I want to be clear that my only intention in writing the book is to share my own story as well as part of my life with Stephen to help other people,” she began a lengthy statement posted to her Instagram Stories on January 8.

Holker enumerated two primary motives for writing the memoir: “to celebrate the love and life I shared with Stephen and our three beautiful children, and also the more complex aspects of both of our lives,” and to “help someone else who might see themselves or a loved one in Stephen. In sharing I hope that maybe they can catch some the red flags that I missed before it’s too late.”

Comments Holker made to PEOPLE in a Jan. 7 interview triggered the wave of criticism. Holker recounted a “triggering moment” in which “a lot of things I discovered in our closet that I did not know existed” while selecting an outfit for Boss’s funeral. The former So You Think You Can Dance? contestant described a “cornucopia” of drugs and “other substances” recovered from the closet, a grim reminder that Boss “was hiding so much, and there must have been a lot of shame in that.”

The same day, family friend Courtney Ann Platt shared a photo of the story on her Instagram, calling the memoir “by far the most tacky, classless, opportunistic act I have ever seen in my entire life.”

“Here you go and write a book with all the dirty laundry smearing his name and attempting to dim the bright loyal, loving, light that was your husband, my friend,” she continued, calling the publication and promotion of the memoir a “smear campaign.” Boss’s brother Dré Rose then shared Platt’s post with the caption, “No lies told.”

“Over the course of the last 2 years, I’ve spoken in detail with NAMI as well as the Solomon family and THE DEFENSIVE LINE foundation to better educate myself on mental health issues so that I can share warning signs with others,” Holker wrote on Instagram today. She added that all the proceeds from her memoir will be donated to “the mental health focused foundation I started in Stephen’s honor, Move with Kindness.”

Holker concluded her post by writing, “My hope is that we don’t need to lose another husband, brother, father, or friend to suicide. I believe that if Stephen were able to choose, he would choose to have his story told if it meant saving even one life. Much love to all those who have supported our family these many years.”

Holker and Boss’s romance first sparked when they both appeared as All Stars on season 7 of So You Think You Can Dance. “We shared a dance at the wrap party of that season of So You Think You Can Dance and we have been together ever since,” Boss told PEOPLE at the time.

The couple eventually married in 2013 and welcomed three children – Weslie (16), Maddox (8), and Zaia (5).