So You Think You Can Dance alum Joshua Allen has died at age 36.
TMZ broke the news on Wednesday, October 1, with one of Allen’s family members asking for “privacy and prayers” as they grieve. A cause of death has yet to be revealed.
Emmanuel Hurd, a friend of the late dancer, remembered him as “a very honest, real person” while speaking with TMZ.
“He didn’t always do things the way that everybody thought he should, but that’s why he was a winner,” Hurd told the publication.
Allen rose to fame after winning SYTYCD season 4 in 2008. He was crowned the champion over late runner-up Stephen “tWtich” Boss, who died by suicide at age 40 in December 2022.
“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,” Allen told Entertainment Weekly in 2008 following his win. “I didn’t want to audition for the show not knowing anything.”
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He auditioned for the series in Dallas, but “there were months” before Allen moved to Las Vegas ahead of the live shows. He spent that time taking “as many classes as I could” — which seemed to pay off.
“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,” he added. “I would always just train in the summer. So it was never hard training.”
While it was “difficult” for him to grasp some of the show’s choreography, Allen knew he had to “make it look easy” when performing.
Allen made it clear during the same interview that there was no bad blood between himself and Boss during their SYTYCD season, even though the two were competing against each other at the time.
“We were really happy for each other,” Allen added. “We were two of the closest people there.”
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Years before his death, Allen made headlines in 2016 for a domestic violence arrest involving an ex-girlfriend.
News broke in 2017 that Allen was sentenced to one year in jail after pleading no contest to the charges. He also received five years of formal probation and one year of domestic violence counseling, per Deadline. The judge also ordered Allen to stay away from his ex.
Following his SYTYCD win, Allen appeared as a featured dancer in Step Up 3D, which was released in 2010. He was part of Oxygen’s Dance Your Ass Off and appeared in the 2011 Footloose remake. Allen’s acting career continued with roles in various commercials and TV shows, including Community and American Horror Story, before his death.
Allen previously shared his career aspirations with EW coming off his SYTYCD win.
“I do want to be a recording artist. I want to choreograph and hopefully own my own studio and company,” he said in 2008. “As my ultimate goal, I want to own my own record label, and be a producer — things like that. But I also want to model.”
