Joshua Allen: ‘So You Think You Can Dance’ Winner Dies At 36
The
professional dancer from Fort Worth, Texas died on Tuesday,
September 30 as a family member has declined to comment to TMZ how
he passed.
That same family member of Joshua Allen asked fans for
'privacy and prayers.'
Friend of the late dancer Emmanuel Hurd told the
publication that he was 'a very honest, real person.'
Hurd continued to TMZ: 'He didn’t always do things the
way that everybody thought he should, but that’s why he was a winner.
He is best known for winning the reality
dancing competition show in 2008.
Joshua Allen actually won over Stephen 'tWitch' Boss who
was runner up on the show and they became good friends
Boss - who went on to become DJ and executive
producer of The Ellen DeGeneres Show - died by suicide at age 40 in December
2022.
Of their relationship at the time Allen commented: 'We
were really happy for each other. We were two of the closest people
there.'
Allen originally auditioned for SYTYCD in Dallas, Texas
along with his friend and fellow contestant, Comfort Fedoke.
He ultimately was crowned on August 7, 2008 and earned
the cash prize of $250,000.
After he earned the victory, he revealed at that he
actually had no technical dance training as a kid but did work on a few things
before his audition.
Allen
told Entertainment
Weekly: 'I took a few modern dance classes, ballet classes,
because I felt that to be a better dancer I would have to take different
classes, and expand my horizons in the art of dance.
'I didn’t want to audition for the show not knowing
anything.'
After nailing his audition, there were months
before he moved to Las Vegas ahead of the live shows so he strategically spent
that time taking 'as many classes as I could' which certainly paid off.
He said: 'I really wasn’t that technically trained. I
would just try to take classes in the summer, and when it was school time I
would take class, run track, play football.
'I would always just train in the summer. So it was never
hard training.'
He did find success on the big screen after his SYTYCD
win as he was a featured dancer in 2010 flick Step Up 3D in addition to the
Footloose remake in 2011.
He also took part as a dancer and
choreographer in Oxygen's Dance Your Ass Off back in 2010 and even had acting
roles on television shows Community and American Horror Story.
Allen made headlines again in 2016 for a domestic
violence arrest involving an ex-girlfriend.
He
was ultimately sentenced to one year in jail after pleading no contest to the
charges and received five years probation in addition to one year of domestic
violence counseling according to Deadline.
Allen's final Instagram post was a tribute
post to The Cosby Show star Malcolm Jamal Warner who passed away in July at the
age of 54.
Comments
Post a Comment