Julianne Alexandra Hough is an American dancer, actor, and singer. She is a two-time professional champion of ABC's Dancing with the Stars and was nominated for a Creative Arts Primetime Emmy in 2007 for Outstanding Choreography in season five of the show. Her first leading acting role was in the 2011 film remake of Footloose.
In September 2014, Hough joined Dancing with the Stars as a permanent fourth judge. Along with her brother Derek Hough (who is a six-time winner of the dancing show) and Tessandra Chavez, she won the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Choreography in 2015. In 2016, she played Sandy in the live Fox television production of Grease. In 2019, she joined the reality TV series America's Got Talent as a judge.
In a 2019 interview with Women's Health, she talked about her relationship with husband Brooks Laich,
Knowing she has Brooks by her side through the ups and downs only reinforces her resilience. However, there was a moment during the past year when she feared he wouldn’t vibe with her evolution.
“I was connecting to the woman inside that doesn’t need anything, versus the little girl that looked to him to protect me,” she remembers. “I was like, ‘Is he going to love this version of me?’ But the more I dropped into my most authentic self, the more attracted he was to me. Now we have a more intimate relationship.”
That new intimacy has allowed Julianne to reveal truths to her husband that even he didn’t know. “I [told him], ‘You know I’m not straight, right?’ And he was like, ‘I’m sorry, what?’ I was like, ‘I’m not. But I choose to be with you,’” she says.[1]