Tragic Details About Julianne Hough's Life

Julianne Hough is beautiful and talented and she has enjoyed great success, but her rise to fame was filled with personal struggles. Hough was raised as a Mormon in Salt Lake City, Utah, but her life would change at 10 when she moved away to pursue her passion: dance. She has made it big, but at what cost? Hough had a challenging childhood and was bullied by her peers.

"I got bullied in high school big-time. I had just come back from London and was the new kid. People looked at me like, 'She thinks she's all that,'" she told Redbook in 2014. "And because I didn't know how to talk to them, maybe I did come across that way? I don't know. I got asked to prom by a guy, and he ended up ditching me that day because the girls had told him to do it."

As an adult, her public relationships and breakups, a distasteful Halloween costume, and accusations of body shaming have also made headlines. Hough is a strong and resilient woman who has overcome her personal tragedies to become who she is today.

Julianne Hough has discussed how the divorce of her parents, Marriann and Bruce Hough, would alter her life. "It was a very difficult time for our family," Bruce told People in 2014. "We didn't want them to have to choose between their parents, and they had a great opportunity in England."

Julianne has touched on her decision to move. "At 10 years old, my parents went through a pretty aggressive divorce, and I lived with my dance coaches," she said in an episode of "The Goop Lab" in 2020 (via HollywoodLife). Since Julianne and her brother Derek Hough are celebrities, there is an increased interest in their childhood, with the details of the Hough's divorce being made public in 2014.

According to RadarOnline, the former couple were granted joint legal care of their four children (they have five in total, but their eldest was not a minor at the time). "The parties both have loving and valuable relationships with their children and agree to work together to support those relationships," the divorce document reads (via RadarOnline). Julianne has been vocal about the effects the divorce had on her, and she and Derek even gave fans a glimpse into their pain with a beautiful and emotional dance that they performed together on an episode of "Dancing With the Stars" in 2017.

Julianne Hough's Halloween costume in 2013 was in poor taste. She attended a party dressed as the "Orange Is the New Black" character Crazy Eyes. The backlash was swift, resulting in Hough making a public apology on X (formerly Twitter). "I am a huge fan of the show 'Orange is the New Black,' actress Uzo Aduba, and the character she has created," she wrote. "It certainly was never my intention to be disrespectful or demeaning to anyone in any way. I realize my costume hurt and offended people, and I truly apologize."

Uzo Aduba portrays Crazy Eyes on the show, and she commented on Hough's decision. "I think maybe it was an unfortunate event, but she apologized, and I feel like we can all move on," she told E! News. Laverne Cox, who also stars in the show, addressed the criticism. "I don't think Julianne is making a specific informed choice to comment on blackness. I just think it's out of this ignorance. That's really sad," she told Us Weekly.

Years later, Hough's use of blackface made headlines again. This time, she was the one to address it in an Instagram post in 2021. "Wearing blackface was a poor choice based on my own white privilege and my own white body bias that hurt people and is something I regret doing to this day," she wrote. "However, the regret that I live with pales in comparison to the lived experiences of so many."

Julianne Hough's relationship with Ryan Seacrest was very public. The couple dated from 2010 to 2013, and Hough was not shy about speaking about her affection for her boyfriend. "He is such an influential guy ... and what if it didn't work out? Our first date, I was so nervous that I just sat there and interviewed him with questions like, 'Are you loyal?' and 'Are you close to your family?'" she told InStyle (via Us Weekly) in a chat in 2012. "I'm very in love, and it feels great. I feel like I'm more comfortable in my own skin. You see me instead of all the makeup and hair."

The breakup would be challenging for Hough. "It was 2013, and I had just got out of a relationship that was very high profile," she said on Instagram Live (via ET). "I was on private planes and yachts and living in a very, very well-off house. My life was pretty different from where I grew up." She also admitted to not having any friends at the time of the breakup. So, following the split, she used the time to find herself. Over the next year, she would experiment, including heading to Coachella, saying, "We did certain things that I was not proud of." She would also feel "a little lost" confessing she didn't "really know who Julianne is."

Amber Rose competed on "Dancing with the Stars" with her professional dance partner Maksim Chmerkovskiy in 2016. Julianne Hough was a judge on the show, and her comments on one of Rose's performances did not sit right with her. Hough said "Oh, I'm uncomfortable" in response to Rose's tango. In response, Rose shared her thoughts on "Loveline with Amber Rose" on the Play.it Network show (via People). Rose said professional dancers "dress very sexy and they do the splits and they grind up on these guys and they look absolutely stunning and get a standing ovation ... and me, and my body, my hips, my ass, my breasts made her uncomfortable."

Hough responded to the criticism with a statement. "My comments were solely reacting to the quality of the dance I was judging," she told People (via Entertainment Weekly). "I have been a strong proponent of female empowerment and an anti-bullying advocate for years, and I take that very seriously. Any kind of body shaming is the furthest thing from who I am and what I stand for."

The misunderstanding was resolved later, with Hough explaining herself and Rose accepting. Rose posted on X (formerly Twitter), writing, "Rosebuds! @juliannehough did apologize to me for the way her comment came off. The crowd was clapping loud at the time #GirlPower."

Julianne Hough has endometriosis, a painful condition that affects the tissue lining the uterus. She was diagnosed in 2008. "I found out that I had endometriosis and that I needed to get surgery that week," she told People in 2017. But there were signs of the condition since childhood. "When I was 15, I had symptoms of endometriosis, but I had never heard of it, didn't know what it was. I thought that this was just the kind of pain you have when you're on your period," she said. "For years, for I was just thinking that was normal and never really talked about it."

Endometriosis can affect fertility, and this is something she discussed with her then-husband, Brooks Laich. "We never actually tried to get pregnant. It was more of a precautionary measure: Let's do our due diligence for the future by freezing eggs," she told Women's Health in 2020. In the same interview, she also discussed how her symptoms had improved, which she believed was a direct impact of "the love and kindness I'm giving to my body." She continued, "I believe there's stress, shame, guilt, and suppression of female energy that's associated with endometriosis, so de-layering that has really helped."

But why speak about it? "It's common, and it's been super-empowering to get messages from women all over the world," Hough told Redbook in 2017 about her decision to go public and to encourage others to get checked out.