Julianne Hough Says She Was Sexually Abused by Neighbor at Age 4

Julianne Hough is getting weak in regards to the trauma and abuse she endured as a toddler and the way she’s labored to heal her ache over time.

The skilled dancer and actress opened up throughout an emotional dialog on Thursday’s episode of The Jamie Kern Lima Present, the place she revealed that she was “about 4 years outdated” when she was sexually abused for the primary time. Hough mentioned her abuser was a neighbor who lived in the identical Utah cul-de-sac as her household.

“I’ve truly by no means mentioned that out loud to anyone in an interview earlier than,” Hough admitted. “However that was a really, very complicated time as a result of, clearly, rising up within the Mormon tradition, every little thing must be good, everyone must placed on the shiny, we’ve acquired our stuff collectively. And there was not numerous repercussion for what had occurred.”

“And by the way in which, I’m not the one one in my household that had gone by related issues. And in order that was a really difficult factor to come back to phrases with,” she continued. “No person did something.”

The Dancing with the Stars co-host defined that she didn’t inform her dad and mom about what particularly occurred to her till later in life, as she “forgot” in regards to the incident. Nevertheless, she did inform them about “different issues [that] occurred later in my childhood” when she was in her teenagers.

“I had forgot in regards to the neighbor factor at 4 years outdated till I began actually doing this work in the previous few years,” Hough mentioned. “That’s why I believe I blocked out from delivery to 10, principally, as a result of I had utterly disassociated from that ever taking place.”

Later within the episode, the Protected Haven star famous to host Jamie Kern Lima that her dad and mom are not involved along with her abuser and that her mom moved them out of the neighborhood as quickly as she realized one thing occurred.

Hough recounted the second she instructed her mom in regards to the incident after she got here dwelling along with her garments inside out as a toddler. “She mentioned, ‘Inform me what occurred,’” Hough recalled. “And I mentioned — this was my solely method of describing it as a result of we weren’t allowed carbonation as children, we weren’t allowed pop or something like that, however I bear in mind tasting it and it burned and it damage my lungs — and I bear in mind saying I felt like I had a Sprite bottle between my legs.”

Afterward, she mentioned her mother “freaked out” and that’s when her household moved. “I suppose my mother did do what she may,” Hough confessed as she tried to carry again tears. “She simply needed to maneuver and go away. She didn’t wish to cope with it. She didn’t wish to discuss it, however she did wish to get us out.”

The Footloose actress famous that different members of the family additionally handled related abuse rising up. She additionally beforehand shared in a 2013 interview with Cosmopolitan that she was “abused mentally, bodily, every little thing” at age 10 whereas attending a dance academy in London along with her brother, Derek Hough. That led her to “not belief anyone.”

“The folks that additionally violated my sisters or my brother or myself, they by no means acquired reprimanded for it as a result of we didn’t say one thing,” Hough defined to Lima. “As a substitute, we simply pivoted and we simply moved — which is nice, get out of a state of affairs — but additionally that’s one other factor which is for me, simply pivot, pivot, pivot.”

She added, “I’ve by no means shared that earlier than, in reality, I simply had a bit little bit of a profound revelation throughout that: that my mother did do the very best that she may.”

Elsewhere throughout their dialog, Hough mentioned she is aware of that her dad and mom “felt responsible” as soon as they realized in regards to the abuse she rendered in her teenagers. “On the time, after I was youthful, I believe additionally they didn’t know what to do. And have been additionally able of not feeling succesful or additionally feeling helpless,” she defined. “And so, I believe now that we’ve had these conversations, they’ve additionally mentioned these issues.”

As Hough continued her therapeutic journey, she ultimately “reconnected” along with her dad and mom amid her divorce from Brooks Laich in 2020.

“I reclaimed my parental relationship with them, and I acquired to be the child and so they acquired to handle me,” she mentioned. “And that was essentially the most therapeutic time for us.”