Allison Holker Recalls Being 'Taken Advantage of' By 'Older Man' at 17: 'I Blamed Myself For Years'

"It tore me apart for a lot of years because I felt like it was my fault," said the So You Think You Can Dance alum while recalling the alleged abuse she suffered in the dance community as a teenager.

Allison Holker is recalling a "traumatizing" experience she had as a teenager.

While promoting her upcoming memoir, This Far: My Story of Love, Loss, and Embracing the Light, on The Jamie Kern Lima Show, the professional dancer detailed allegedly being "taken advantage of" by an "older man" in the dance community when she was 17.

Getty

"I wanted to ask you, in your book, you talk about at the age of 17, you experienced something you say was so traumatizing, that it touched every part of your life," Lima asked Holker during the interview, which was published on Monday.

"I had experienced my first time really feeling like I'd been taken advantage of from the other gender," Holker replied. "Someone taking advantage of my vulnerability and my joy of life and my energy of wanting to constantly learn."

"I had some, you know, older man really take advantage of the vulnerability that women go through, especially in the dance community. Where we look up to our teachers and we just trust them -- and dance can be very physical. It can be very sexual, even at a young age. And that was taken advantage of.”

Looking back, the mom of three -- who is the widow of Stephen "tWitch" Boss -- said she wishes she would have "spoke[n] out" for herself, and for the "other young girls" who were allegedly in a similar situation, admitting that she felt "shame" for many years because she remained silent.

"It tore me apart for a lot of years because I felt like it was my fault. I felt like it was my fault because 'How could it have gotten to that place? I must have done something wrong,'" Holker recalled, "and I felt so much shame in who I was, and I was so embarrassed."

"To this day, it's one of those things -- man, if I would have just spoke out for myself, maybe I could’ve built myself back up and helped other young girls to not let that happen," she added, "but I felt a lot of shame in myself, and it was really hard for me to work through that for so many years."

The So You Think You Can Dance alum went on to say that she feels "proud" to be able to confidently say she later realized she wasn't at fault, before adding that she doesn't understand "why people do things like that."

"I blamed myself for years," she added.

Holker -- who shared kids Weslie, 16, Maddox, 8, and Zaia, 5, with Boss -- said that her alleged experience led her to make Weslie know to speak up if she ever felt uncomfortable.

"When I had my daughter, I realized that I need to build her up to, like, if anything ever happened to her, come to someone -- come to me, come to someone you feel safe with and say, 'This was wrong,'" she explained, later adding that she shared her own story with Weslie, noting that it was a "powerful" mother-daughter moment.

Instagram

Holker said that she "questioned it for a long time" whether or not she was going to include this story in her book, which will be released next month.

"Bringing something like that up was a really trying conversation to have with myself if I wanted to put that out there," she shared. "Not because I didn't want to be honest, but just it's a lot emotionally to put something like that out there."

"But then I realized that was kind of the beginning of me becoming so independent and strong and realizing that I won't ever let someone take anything else from me ever again," she said.

Holker has been promoting her memoir, This Far: My Story of Love, Loss, and Embracing the Light, in which, per her publisher, she "reveals how she has navigated the emotional and financial aftermath of Stephen's choice, guided their three children in their grief while managing the outpouring from a well-meaning public, and reopened herself to the next chapter in her professional and personal life." 

Much of her promo tour so far has been surrounding Boss' death, which she discusses at length in her memoir. The Ellen DeGeneres Show co-executive producer, SYTYCD alum, and longtime DJ died by suicide at age 40 in December 2022.

This Far: My Story of Love, Loss, and Embracing the Light will be released on February 4. Pre-order it now, here.

The National Sexual Assault Telephone Hotline -- 800.656.HOPE (4673) -- provides free, 24/7 support for those in need.