Ellen DeGeneres remembers tWitch in emotional holiday message: 'Send love to one another'

The holidays can be rough, and Ellen DeGeneres is urging fans to honor the memory of the late Stephen "tWitch" Boss by sending love to one another.

DeGeneres took to Instagram on Friday to remember Boss, her friend and former show DJ, who died by suicide earlier this month at age 40.

"Everyone is in pain and trying to make sense of it, and we'll never make sense of it," DeGeneres said of Boss' death. "The holidays are hard, I think, anyway, but to honor tWitch, I think the best thing that we can do is to laugh, hug each other, play games, and dance and sing. That's the way we honor him, is we do the things that he loved to do, which is dancing. He loved music, he loved games, so we do that."

"I know it seems hard, it seems impossible, but that's how we honor him," DeGeneres added. "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."

Boss got his start on DeGeneres' long-running daytime talk show as a guest DJ in 2014 but soon charmed audiences with his upbeat personality and dynamic dance moves to become a full-time fixture. He eventually became an executive producer on the show and went on to star with DeGeneres on her variety game show Ellen's Game of Games, which ran for four seasons on NBC.

"So, happy holidays, everybody," DeGeneres concluded her message. "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 and send love to one another."

Related content:

• Stephen 'tWitch' Boss, dancer and Ellen DeGeneres Show DJ, dies at 40
• Ellen DeGeneres mourns the death of Stephen 'tWitch' Boss: 'I loved him with all my heart'
• Ellen DeGeneres' new co-producer 'tWitch' Boss fills in as host