Who Is Julianne Hough's Ex-Husband Brooks Laich?

Julianne Hough first broke out as one of the dance pros on "Dancing with the Stars," the hit reality series that pairs celebrities with professional dancers for an intense competition. The dance pros on "DWTS" soon became just as famous as the stars they were guiding to the mirrorball trophy, with fans becoming intensely interested in their personal lives, too. There have been plenty of real-life romances to come from the "Dancing with the Stars" ballroom — after all, dancers are athletes, and when you put them in a high-pressure environment with some famously attractive celebrities, sometimes sparks are going to fly.

That's why "DWTS" fans are likely to know the name Brooks Laich. Though they didn't meet on set of the reality show, the former NHL player was married to Hough for several years, and the couple weren't shy about letting fans get a peek into some extremely personal parts of their lives. Unfortunately, the romance wasn't meant to last, and the two have since gone their separate ways. That doesn't mean Laich is no longer famous, however; quite the contrary. His pro-sports past and his time with Hough have given him an ongoing celebrity status, and the frequent world traveler has set about using that celebrity for good.

Long before he found a whole new audience and fanbase thanks to his relationship with Julianne Hough, Brooks Laich was famous in his own right as a hockey player. He first joined the NHL in 2003 playing for the Ottawa Senators, but Laich was soon traded to the Washington Capitals, where he spent the bulk of his career.

After a few years with the Capitals, Laich became known as one of the team's best goal-scoring players. He even told The Washington Post during his 2009 season that his determination to score goals sometimes got in the way of his own success. "Sometimes I get into too much of a rush. I try too hard. I try to do too much," he mused. "I talked to [Coach Bruce Boudreau] about it the other day and he told me: 'Just read the play and relax. Have fun.' Before, I was trying to score so badly that I was taking myself out of position and I was rushing things instead of relying on instincts."

The Washington Post noted that Laich had recently signed a multi-million dollar contract extension, and insisted he was devoted to the team enough that it would be worthwhile. "If I asked you about your family, you would talk about them forever because it's something you love. That's the way I feel about this team," he said. "This team is my life, and I love playing here."

While Brooks Laich was mostly known as a powerhouse hockey player who could be counted upon to score numerous goals for the Washington Capitals, he also made headlines for getting involved in a potentially dangerous incident on the ice. In 2011, while playing against the New York Rangers, Laich found himself brawling with a rival player named Sean Avery — who would go on to compete against swimmer Diana Nyad on "Dancing with the Stars" in 2014.

When the players separated, they alerted referees to a dispute. Avery claimed that Laich had bitten him; Laich insisted that he'd done no such thing. In fact, Laich then accused Avery of playing dirty in an entirely different way. "[Avery's] fingers were in my mouth, and I remember thinking about that, that I'm not [going to be] stupid about biting a player. He was trying to eye gouge me, he was sticking his fingers in my mouth," Laich insisted to The Washington Post (via NESN).

After all, Laich had personal experience with hockey players using their teeth to fight dirty. "That play happened to me where somebody bit me," he revealed, "and I thought it was a low, disrespectful, gutless play, and I'm not gonna do that." NESN reported that video of the incident showed no bite, so Avery's complaint didn't get Laich in trouble.

In 2010, the Washington Capitals lost a game that knocked them out of the running for the playoffs. As fans headed home for the night, a mother named Mary Ann Wangemann and her daughter experienced a flat tire on the Roosevelt Bridge in Washington, D.C. While they waited for AAA to come help them out, someone else pulled over instead: Brooks Laich.

While Wangemann asked him to just wait with them, Laich decided to change the tire himself. He had to take off his post-game suit jacket to jack up the tire, impressing Wangemann and her daughter with his dedication to doing a good deed. "He was like an angel, I'm telling you. Can't say enough nice things about him," she told The Washington Post (via NESN). Eventually, Wangemann confessed that she was a fan and told Laich that she was particularly impressed by how polite he and his teammates seem to be. She claimed he answered, "We're just people, too."

When the good deed was done, Wangemann asked Laich how she could repay him for his kindness. Before hugging them goodbye, he said, "I'm sure you'll do something nice for someone in the future." Is it possible that Brooks Laich is secretly one of Hollywood's most down-to-earth celebrities?

In 2014, Julianne Hough told Redbook that she was in a new relationship. Ryan Seacrest's high-profile relationship with Julianne Hough had recently ended, and the dancer found herself dating around, looking for something different. "My family went to a six-day seminar [last November] about creating your own destiny," she explained. "I was not into it at first, but I learned so much about myself and why my relationships didn't work that by the end I was on a high." She dumped all of the guys she'd been seeing, and the very next day a friend introduced her to Brooks Laich. "I'm not holding anything back, because I'd rather get my heart broken than never know what it is to be completely, madly in love," she revealed.

They married three years later, with Laich telling People that their outdoor Idaho wedding was exactly what they wanted it to be. "It was really important to me that we had our ceremony outdoors. Julianne and I are very adventurous and free and wanted the setting to be in nature," Laich explained. Hough wore a Marchesa gown, and Laich wore — fittingly! – a Brooks Brothers suit.

People spoke with celebs who attended the wedding, including "The Vampire Diaries" star Nina Dobrev. She told the outlet that on the day of the wedding, it was plain to see that her friends were very much in love. "I've never seen a man look at a woman like that when they said 'I Do,'" the actor said. "It took my breath away."

A few years into their marriage, Brooks Laich and Julianne Hough opened up about the way they'd kept their love life going. By early 2020, Laich had launched a podcast called "How Men Think," and went into detail about their sex life on one February episode. Laich insisted that, because they were so deeply in love, there was no way anything sexual could be "dirty." He explained, "A big part of my journey in 2020 is exploring my sexuality. And by that I don't mean if I'm gay or straight. I mean, in my sexual relationship, what is my sexuality and what am I craving, and what are my desires and what are my wife's?"

Though you might expect a professional athlete to have quite the romantic life, Laich claimed that he'd never prioritized sexuality before his marriage to Hough. "I woke up as an athlete, wanted to train, wanted to eat, sleep, rest, perform. Sexuality was way below all of that for the majority of my life," he said. Now that they were married, however, Laich finally felt comfortable opening up about his wants and desires.

In that same episode, Laich also ruminated about what his life would be like if he and Hough were to split up. "Could I fantasize about it? Maybe," he allowed. "But that's all it would be. Truthfully, genuinely to my heart, do I actually want that? No."

Even though Brooks Laich insisted on his podcast "How Men Think" in early 2020 that he had no interest in splitting up with Julianne Hough, just a few months later, they'd done exactly that. The couple told People in May 2020 that they were no longer together, explaining that they'd been apart during the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic. "We have lovingly and carefully taken the time we have needed to arrive at our decision to separate," they said. A source added that their COVID-induced distance made them realize it was time to be honest with themselves. "It's over, it's been over for a while," the source said, "and it's time to just call it what it is."

A few months later, on his podcast "How Men Think," Laich confessed that he'd had quite the emotional year. Still, he was looking at his divorce like a learning opportunity, like a chance to finally tap into the kinds of emotions that men are usually encouraged to repress. "It's wonderful ... I've learned how to honor emotions in the moment and let them come up and through me and out of me, and a lot of times that's through crying," he said. Laich isn't the only one to hold on to fond feelings for the "Safe Haven" star after a breakup. Click here to see what Julianne Hough's exes have said about her.

The year 2020 wound up being quite a pivotal time in the life of Brooks Laich, and not just because he got divorced from Julianne Hough. That same year, Laich founded World Playground, a travel company that brings people on adventurous expeditions to places as far-flung as Rwanda, Iceland, Antarctica, Tonga, and Egypt. Laich features in many of the shots on the company's Instagram, tagging along on many group trips all around the world.

In an appearance on CBS Los Angeles, Laich explained he landed on travel when he realized he needed the rest of his life to be focused on something as exciting as his professional hockey career. "I found out that I had just done something I loved for the past 13 years," he said. "I can't, for the rest of my life, do something I like. I need to find something that I love to do." That turned out to be luxury travel.

In an open letter on the company's website, Laich invited potential clients to reach out. "My personal mission in life is to inspire people, to inspire you — and to ignite you to live life on fire! World Playground is my vessel to do so. Whether it's through a group adventure together, or just curating your dream getaway," he wrote. "I aim to have a positive impact on your life by assisting in creating enriching experiences and fostering lasting memories."

Brooks Laich wrote on the World Playground website that he's made it his mission in life to inspire people, and his travel company does a lot of charitable work to make that happen. In 2022, for example, Laich raised $50,000 to build facilities for a school in Tanzania. He'd recently visited a remote village, he said in a YouTube video to launch the fundraiser, and was able to visit with students. "We were absolutely blown away by their willingness to learn," he said. "However we were also equally blown away by the inadequate living and learning conditions that were provided for them." The campaign was successfully funded.

World Playground isn't the first time Laich has lent his name to something good. When he was a player on the Washington Capitals, Laich participated in So Kids Can. The charitable endeavor asked players to donate $50 per regular-season game and $100 per playoff game to charity. They raised more than $650,000 that way for various organizations.

As a couple, Laich and Julianne Hough founded a group called Love:United, which worked to draw attention to important causes. Their first campaign, for example, partnered with Charity:Water and I Am Zambia to raise money for clean drinking water. On the Omaze page for the campaign, they wrote, "Access to clean water improves health, boosts local economies, empowers women and gives kids more time in school." Can't argue with that.

There are plenty of tragic details about Julianne Hough's life, but her relationship with her ex-husband isn't one of them. When the couple first announced their split in People, a source told the outlet, "They are hoping to move forward as deeply loving friends forever who will always be supportive and encouraging of one another." That kind of sentiment shows up a lot in celebrity divorce announcements, but not every couple is able to make it happen. Resentments pile up, splits turn sour, and people never talk to each other again.

Thankfully, that doesn't seem to be what happened here. In 2024, Hough appeared on "The Jamie Kern Lima Show" and spoke about attending a wedding where she ran into her ex and his new love. She insisted that it wasn't weird at all. "It was so beautiful," the "Footloose" star marveled. "I'm in this place where I now feel like I'm just beginning with so much wisdom, with so much insight, with so much compassion and so much empathy and understanding of like, what's possible."

The following year, People noticed that Hough shared a snap of her ex-husband on her Instagram story. She'd spent what she called "a special day on the lake" with Laich; though he didn't make the roundup she posted to her Instagram grid, she captioned that video, "I'm at the lake with all the people I love."

After his divorce from Julianne Hough, Brooks Laich moved on with Katrín Davíðsdóttir, a CrossFit star. They got engaged late in 2024, announcing the proposal on Instagram that December. "Forever feels just right with you," they wrote in the caption of the joint post, which included several snapshots of them looking lovingly into each other's eyes.

By October 2025, Laich and Davíðsdóttir had welcomed their first child together. They shared a bunch of photos to Instagram that appeared to have been taken moments after the birth of Emberly Heba Laich. In all of the photos, the new mom and dad looked exhausted but overjoyed as they cuddle the little one. "Our hearts are overflowing with love as we welcome our daughter into this world. Becoming her parents has been the greatest gift we ever could have imagined — our precious, peaceful, powerful little girl who was born under the full supermoon!" they wrote in the caption.

The lovely announcement caught the attention of one of the internet's favorite "DWTS" pros. Julianne Hough commented on the post, wishing the couple well and writing, "Baby Girl Emberly has arrived and she couldn't be more loved! Congratulations you two beauties, can't wait to meet her."