How Derek Hough Supported Sister Julianne Hough After Dogs' Death

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When it came to Julianne Hough's dogs Lexi and Harley, she made it clear she loved "my girls more than anything on this planet!"

So when the Cavalier King Charles Spaniels suddenly died in September 2019, fans wondered what happened. However, Julianne only expressed her grief.

"I’ve never experienced a love like ours," she wrote on Instagram the following month. "I miss you. I love you forever. Now You Are Free."

It wouldn't be until five years later that Julianne shared they were killed by coyotes. 

“I woke up before my phone even rang, and I knew,” she said on an August 2024 episode of The Jamie Kern Lima Show. “I picked up the phone and my assistant at the time was just screaming.”  

Julianne said she had gates and never had coyotes in her yard before. However, she expressed how she's grateful Lexi and Harley "went together," that "usually how it happens is very quick," and that she recovered their bodies.

Their deaths came amid a difficult time. As Julianne recalled on the podcast, she'd separated from now-ex-husband Brooks Laich, stopped working with her longtime assistant and was preparing to bring her brand KINRGY on Oprah Winfrey's 2020 tour.

And while Lexi and Harley will always be in her heart, she's extended her love —getting dog Sunny in 2023.

"Lexi & Harley would have loved and played with you everyday," she wrote in a 2024 post, "and I know that they sent you to me, only when I was ready to open my heart and love again - you cracked me open sweetheart."

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Though Julianne and Brooks announced their split in May 2020—finalizing their divorce less than two years later—the dancer suggested she and the former NHL player had been facing challenges for a while. 

“There was also a long time of questioning is this working, is this not working?" Julianne shared on The Jamie Kern Lima Show. "We’re going in different directions."

Julianne and Brooks first sparked romance rumors in 2014 and tied the knot three years later.

"I went full force ahead into relationship," she added, "and it was amazing. And I will tell you it was the greatest thing that could have happened to me at that time in my life because what I needed at that time was to reconnect to my 10-year-old self. And what did I need at 10? I really needed safety and almost like a father figure to come in and be that grounding force of stability. So I think a lot of our dynamic was this little girl feeling and this stability and stable man to be there."

This dynamic provided her with healing.

"When I started going through all of that journey, I started becoming more of a woman," she continued. "When that was happening, I was starting to listen to my voice more—not the 10-year-old voice that was making decisions subconsciously."

And Julianne began to learn more about herself.

"As that started happening," she later added, "I really started shifting and changing and questioning what I believed in." 

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While still with Brooks she once told him, "'You know I’m not straight, right?'" the Safe Haven star recalled to Women’s Health in 2019. “And he was like, 'I’m sorry, what?' I was like, 'I'm not. But I choose to be with you.'"

However, Julianne isn’t focusing on labels. 

“Coming out is one of the most vulnerable and empowering things that you can do,” she noted on The Jamie Kern Lima Show. “And I think for me was very much like it’s not about being straight or gay or bi or queer. It’s more about I think I’m just learning what love is and I love people. I don’t know what I’m attracted to, but I choose you.”

As her journey of self-discovery continued, Julianne learned more about how she connects with others.

“That is the freedom of the love that I was starting to experience in seeing people,” the dancer added. “Because I think I had been able to take off a layer of, again, protection. And instead of being so internalized, I was starting to see people and seeing their hearts and seeing their beauty and their essence coming through in a way that I was like, 'Wow, I love people. And I don’t know if it’s a sexual attraction or a this attraction, but I’m just seeing people.' And that was such a beautiful revelation."

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She wouldn’t give this celebrity the mirrorball trophy again.

While appearing on an August 2024 episode of Watch What Happens Live With Andy Cohen, the Dancing With the Stars host cosigned when fellow guest Mickey Guyton said she disagreed with Bobby Bones winning season 27 with pro Sharna Burgess in 2018.

“I actually agree with you,” Julianne replied, “and I think it’s because the fan base, right? It’s all about fan base on that show. He was not the best dancer.”

However, Bobby made it clear that Julianne didn't step on his toes with her remark.

"I was the worst dancer," the radio personality said in an Instagram video later that month. "I take pride in that. Now, I tried as hard as anybody in the history of the show. But I can't dance now, couldn't dance then."

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When Julianne started dating Ryan Seacrest in 2010, she was introduced to a new world—one with luxury vacations, courtside Lakers seats and glamorous date nights.

“The rug was swept up from underneath me and I was just flying,” she said on an August 2024 episode of Dax Shepard’s podcast Armchair Expert. “I was experiencing things that I didn’t even know existed. But then I had this insecurity that I was like, 'I don’t ever want anybody to think that I’m with him for this reason. So I then started playing smaller.'"

And Julianne saw herself change.

“I, again, overcompensated, was malleable to fit into exactly what somebody needed me to be for them to be happy,” she added. “What I've realized over the years is I don't know if I've ever truly been in love with someone, but I have loved the feeling of being loved. And so let me be what that needs to be so that I can be loved. And then because I'm so filled with love from someone, of course I love you. I love everyone. I've been in love with everybody I've ever dated, but have I? I don't wanna overanalyze it because every person I've also dated has been a very good person.”

When Julianne and Ryan split 2013, she noted, a lot of "Brentwood moms and producers" questioned the decision.

"They're like, ‘Your life is completely set up,'" she said. "And I was like, ‘But I didn't build it.’ And of course I was like, ‘I need to create this,’ competitively, like, 'it's not mine, and I wanna feel the pride of doing it.'”

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Julianne's country music career started off on a high note.

The singer released her single "Will You Dance With Me" in 2007 and her self-titled debut album—which secured the No. 1 spot on Billboard's Top Country Album chart and featured the Hot 100 hit "That Song In My Head"—the following year. She even toured with Brad Paisley and won the Top New Artist and Top New Female Vocalist trophies at the 2009 Academy of Country Music Awards.

Julianne went on to drop her single "Is That So Wrong" in 2010. And while there was talk of a second album, it never came to fruition.

So what happened?

"My psychology was, 'If I'm not No. 1, then I'm losing,'" Julianne said on an August 2024 episode of On Air With Ryan Seacrest. "I had this competitive nature with myself, and so I decided to just, 'I'm going to pivot, and I'm going to go do movies instead.' I never really followed through with my music, and that was my biggest regret."

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Fans may have seen that viral video of Julianne screaming during an energy session at the World Economic Forum in 2020.

And four years later, the Grease Live! alum spoke out about that moment.

"I've had a few of those supernatural experiences and had a lot of people be like, 'She's lost the plot!'" Julianne shared on an August 2024 episode of Off the Vine With Kaitlyn Bristowe. "Or I did this energy work session, and it went viral. People were like, 'What? She's got, like, demons and an exorcist coming out of her butthole' or something like that. Of course, that was almost five years ago. Now, it's so much more accessible. People understand what's happening, and energy is everything."

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“My first experience was when I was about 4 years old by a neighbor in our neighborhood, in our cul-de-sac,” the Utah native said on The Jamie Kern Lima Show. “I’ve actually never said that out loud to anybody in an interview before. That was a very confusing time because, obviously growing up in the Mormon culture, everything needs to be perfect, everybody needs to put on the shiny ‘we’ve got ourselves together.’ And there was not a lot of repercussion for what had happened.” 

Julianne said it would be years before she told her parents.

“Forgot about it, and then other things happened later in my childhood,” she added. “And then about 15, I came home and I started sharing those things. But I had forgot about the neighbor thing at 4 years old until I started really doing this work in the last few years. That’s why I think I blocked out from birth to 10, basically, because I completely dissociated from that ever happening.”

At the beginning of her book Everything We Never Knew, she dedicated the novel to her younger self who “did what she needed to do to survive and protect herself to get to the place she is today.”

“There's so many people that do what they need to do to survive,” she told Jamie Kern. “And we should be so grateful for that part and that version of us and know that as an adult, like, ‘I see you now and you're not alone.’”

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Though Julianne loves the skin she's in, she will never forget how her body was criticized while she was working on an unnamed movie.

"I was very self-accepting growing up, then something switched in middle school," the actress shared in a 2017 interview with Redbook. "I would compare myself to everyone...and later I did a film where I basically was told I was fat every day, yet I was the skinniest I’d ever been. Now, when I’m self-conscious, I’ll do something completely crazy or goofy to get out of my own head—something fun that reminds me of the freedom I felt as a kid before all that happened."

And Julianne tries to focus on her own relationship with her body versus what other people say.

“In the public eye, it’s definitely harder to not beat yourself up when you see comments that are telling you otherwise than you feel,” she told People in 2016. "I’m doing the best that I can right now and I’m making these conscious choices, and at the end of the day, as long as I’m happy and I’m positive and I’m feeling good, that’s all that realty matters.”