Julianne Hough is opening up about her sexuality — five years after she revealed she’s ‘not straight.’
While appearing on the Jamie Kern Lima Show podcast this week, the Dancing With The Stars alum refused to put a label on herself as she spoke about being attracted to ‘people.’
She also recalled how ’empowering’ it felt to ‘come out’ publicly in 2019.
‘Coming out is one of the most vulnerable and empowering things that you can do. I think for me, it was very much like, it’s not about being straight or gay or bi or queer,’ she explained on the new episode.
‘It’s more about, I think I’m just learning like what love is and I love people and I don’t know what I’m attracted to, but I choose you,’ she explained.
Julianne Hough is opening up about her sexuality — five years after she revealed she’s ‘not straight; seen in June
Hough admitted that she’s just now ‘learning’ about her own sexuality at age 36.
‘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 too,’ she told host Lima.
Hough first touched on her sexual identity in a candid 2019 interview with Women’s Health.
She did so while recalling the moment she confessed to her then-husband Brooks Laich, 41, that she is ‘not straight.’
“‘You know I’m not straight, right?”‘ she remembered asking the ice hockey player.
‘And he was like, “I’m sorry, what?” I was like, “I’m not. But I choose to be with you.”‘
The admission shocked Hough’s fans at the time as many assumed she was ‘straight’ based on her dating history.
Prior to marrying NHL star Laich, Hough publicly dated TV personality Ryan Seacrest and comedian Dane Cook.
She opened up about her marriage to Laich during her sit-down with podcast host Jamie Kern Lima this week.
She told the host that Laich helped heal her childhood trauma during their five-year union.
She shared how he gave her the chance to ‘reconnect’ with her younger self.
The beauty stated, ‘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.’
Her relationship with Laich had given her a ‘little girl feeling’ as well as ‘stability and [a] stable man to be there.’
While appearing on the Jamie Kern Lima Show podcast this week, the DWTS alum refused to put a label on herself as she spoke about being attracted to ‘people’; seen on August 24
Julianne explained that she was ‘able to start that healing’ because Brooks ‘provided such a beautiful foundation for me to be a little girl.’
‘So, when I started going through all of that journey, I started becoming more of a woman, and when that was happening, I was starting to listen to my voice more. Not the 10-year-old voice that was making decisions subconsciously.’
She continued, ‘And as that was happening, things started changing and my mindset. Like, what do I believe in, not just what I’ve either been taught, told or you know, had to do to get where I’m at today.’
Hough added that during her healing journey from 10-years-old and older, she also began ‘shifting and changing and questioning what I believed in.’
The Footloose actress and Laich tied the knot in 2017 after they became engaged in 2015.
However, the former couple announced their separation in 2020, with the divorce officially being finalized in 2022.
During an interview on the Armchair Expert podcast with Dax Shepherd earlier this month, Julianna further reflected on the ‘unraveling’ of their marriage.
‘He had a really rough last few years of his career. He was injured and then he got traded before his team that he had been there for almost 12 years won the Stanley Cup. It makes me want to cry because I feel for him so bad.’
On the topic of the year 2017, Hough revealed, ‘That was the year we got married and the year everything kinda started to unravel.’
Hough first touched on her sexual identity in a candid 2019 interview with Women’s Health, where she recalled telling her then-husband Brooks Laich, 41, that she was ‘not straight’; seen in 2019
The admission shocked Hough’s fans at the time as they assumed she was ‘straight’ based on her dating history; seen with ex-boyfriend Ryan Seacrest in 2013
She said, ‘It wasn’t right. That can be a hard thing to fully accept. I feel like our relationship and our marriage was exactly right, and the end of it is right, too.’
‘We both have regrets that it didn’t work out, because I don’t think we had the maturity to come together. He was contracting while I was expanding. We just couldn’t find each other in that.’
While Hough and Laich have ‘accepted’ the split, the pair are ‘sad that it didn’t work out. He’s got the greatest heart that I could ever have the privilege of being with.’
The two split in 2019 before announcing the separation the following year. Only 10 days after the initial split — Julianne’s two dogs were tragically killed by coyotes.
‘It was an unraveling. Everything that I had ever known, that I had put in place for my control and my protection…’
‘I had this marriage to this guy who represented more of a father figure to me, and while he was changing, I was changing. Uprooted everything.’
However, Julianna tried to keep a positive mindset after the marriage ended. ‘I actually get to start in an intentional way that I get to design and create a life that is actually coming from my soul.’
On the topic of the year 2017, Hough revealed, ‘That was the year we got married and the year everything kinda started to unravel.’
She said, ‘It wasn’t right. That can be a hard thing to fully accept. I feel like our relationship and our marriage was exactly right, and the end of it is right, too.’
‘We both have regrets that it didn’t work out, because I don’t think we had the maturity to come together. He was contracting while I was expanding. We just couldn’t find each other in that.’
While Hough and Laich have ‘accepted’ the split, the pair are ‘sad that it didn’t work out. He’s got the greatest heart that I could ever have the privilege of being with.’
Julianne Hough, 36, expressed that her ex-husband, Brooks Laich, healed her childhood trauma during their five-year marriage
![Her relationship with Laich had given her a 'little girl feeling' as well as 'stability and [a] stable man to be there'; seen in 2019 in L.A.](https://i.dailymail.co.uk/1s/2024/08/30/06/89092767-13795087-Her_relationship_with_Laich_had_given_her_a_little_girl_feeling_-a-2_1724997057094.jpg)
Her relationship with Laich had given her a ‘little girl feeling’ as well as ‘stability and [a] stable man to be there’; seen in 2019 in L.A.
Julianne explained that she was ‘able to start that healing’ because Brooks ‘provided such a beautiful foundation for me to be a little girl’
During an interview on the Armchair Expert podcast with Dax Shepherd earlier this month, Julianna further reflected on the ‘unraveling’ of her marriage to Brooks
The two split in 2019 before announcing the separation the following year. Only 10 days after the initial split — Julianne’s two dogs were tragically killed by coyotes.
‘It was an unraveling. Everything that I had ever known, that I had put in place for my control and my protection…’
‘I had this marriage to this guy who represented more of a father figure to me, and while he was changing, I was changing. Uprooted everything.’
However, Julianna tried to keep a positive mindset after the marriage ended. ‘I actually get to start in an intentional way that I get to design and create a life that is actually coming from my soul.’
‘So for myself, there was all of my experiences of this is what happened to me in my experience, and in my parents’ experience, they have their own guilt and shame of other things and what they were trying to do in the moment. So they can’t necessarily connect the two and hear what was happening because they were having their own experience also.’
‘At that time, they felt guilty that they couldn’t do it, but we’ve definitely through conversation after conversation like, “But we get it now, right? And we’re on the same page? I’m not blaming you now, but I definitely needed more at the time.”‘
‘At 15 and I said those things and shared those things, that was definitely, in the way that I knew how express it then as well, which was like, “This just happened but let’s move on,” because I also didn’t want to deal with it either,”‘ she said, adding she now wants to talk more about the experience after undergoing healing.
She also shared during the interview: ‘Being so young, and those being your first experiences — whether it be physical, mental, sexual — those abuses of power to someone who is vulnerable to it — it immediately sets a precedent of: other people have the power.’
Hough previously revealed she had been abused as a child.
During a 2013 interview with Cosmopolitan, she revealed she had been abused at the age of 10 after moving to London to begin studying dance at the Italia Conti Academy of the Arts with her brother Derek.
The new revelation came as Hough promotes her newly released novel, Everything We Never Knew.
Hough’s debut novel, co-written with Ellen Goodlett, is ‘about a woman who seemingly has everything together, perfect life, perfect husband, perfect marriage, perfect job,’ she explained during a recent appearance on Good Morning America.
In an earlier episode of the Jamie Kern Lima Show, Hough revealed she was sexually abused when she was four-years-old by a neighbor
The new revelation came as Hough promotes her newly released novel, Everything We Never Knew
The main character, Lexi Cole suddenly ‘has these supernatural experiences that threaten the relationships around her,’ the author said.
‘She goes on this healing journey thinking she’s going to heal other people, but of course, you can’t heal anybody else… unless you go and heal yourself first.’
When asked about the dedication to the ‘young Julianne who did what she needed to do in order to survive and protect herself to get to the place where she is today, Hough, who was brought up in the Mormon church and came out as bisexual in 2019, replied, ‘This book is also about trusting yourself.
‘I think we get so inundated with noise and fitting in and the sense of not belonging and so we shift and adapt ourselves to fit in, and I think trusting yourself and going within, is what this is all about and that’s definitely what I experienced as far as dedicating this to my younger self.’