Ellen DeGeneres’ Rwanda campus is celebrating its one-year anniversary by honoring Stephen “tWitch” Boss with a tree planted in his honor.
The Ellen Campus of the Dian Fossey Gorilla Fund posted a photo of the tree on Monday, while paying tribute to the late choreographer who passed away in December 2022 at the age of 40.
“In Memory of Stephen “tWitch” Boss and the light he brought to the world,” the plaque planted in the ground reads.
“As we celebrated the one year anniversary of our Ellen Campus this past week, we took a moment to recognize a very special person who left us too soon,” the post’s caption read. “tWitch brought light to so many and was a wonderful friend to @ellendegeneres In his honor we planted this tree so he will be forever remembered on the campus.”
DeGeneres shared a special friendship with Boss, whom she met in 2010, and he became the house DJ on The Ellen DeGeneres Show from 2014 to the series’ end in 2022, ET reported. The So You Think You Can Dance winner shocked many when he died by suicide weeks before the Christmas holiday.
DeGenres has shared a number of tributes to Boss in the wake of his passing, including an emotional video she posted detailing the tribute she had planned for him during the holiday.
“I just wanted to say, the past 11 days have been
really tough for everyone,” DeGeneres said at the time. “Everyone is in pain and trying to make sense of it, and we’ll never make sense of it. And the holidays are hard, I think, anyway.”Boss was recently honored in the capsule collection of Gap and The Brooklyn Circus. The professional dancer was good friends with Ouigi Theodore, founder and creative director of The Brooklyn Circus, and appeared in a spot filmed prior to his passing.
“If I can put light and joy on people’s timelines, even if you’re watching a 15-second clip and you just enjoy that dance, that little bit of light can go a long way,” he said in the short clip.