The world is still reeling over the death of Stephen “tWitch” Boss by suicide. Ellen DeGeneres, the talk show host who worked with Boss is encoring fans to turn to laughter and joy. On Friday, she honored the late emcee of her talk show.
“The past 11 days have been really tough for everyone,” she remarked at the beginning of a video with tears in her eyes.
“Everyone is in pain and trying to make sense of it. We’ll never make sense of it. And the holidays are hard, I think, anyway. But to honor Twitch, I think the best thing that we can do is to laugh and hug each other and play games and dance and sing.”
She went further urging her fans to “do the things that he loved to do, which is dancing. He loved music.”
“I know it seems hard— It seems impossible. But that’s how we honor him and hug each other and tell each other we love each other and let people know we’re there for them and check in on people,” she added. “So happy holidays, everybody. And I know it’s not a happy holiday, but he was pure light. As everybody in the comments said, if you knew him, you knew that. If you didn’t know him, you saw it. Let’s honor him. And think about him to one another.”
People were quick to respond to Ellen’s post. “Checking in on you, Ellen,” another user wrote. “Sending love and thanking you for all the years of laughter and fun.”
In response to the video, one commenter noted, “There are some people you feel a connection to whether you personally know them or not…he was one of those people.”
Ellen also shared a video of Boss during a segment in which he hosted and interviewed a viral kid dancer by the name of ZaZa.
“I’m heartbroken,” was the caption DeGeneres used on Instagram.
