Julianne Hough is revealing a heartbreaking part of her past. Appearing on The Jamie Kern Lima Show podcast, the 36-year-old Dancing with the Stars cohost shared that she was sexually abused when she was only “about 4 years old” growing up in Utah. She revealed that her abuser was a neighbor. This isn’t the first time she’s shared about experiencing abuse. At 10 years old while living in London with brother Derek Hough, she told Cosmopolitan in 2013, she was “abused mentally, physically, everything.”
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She says the sexual abuse from her neighbor was her 'first experience.'
The actress says what happened to her was the first time she’d experienced sexual abuse. She also shared she initially “forgot about it” until she confided in her parents about abuse she faced at the age of 15.
“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,” she said, adding that she’d “blocked out from birth to 10 basically because I had completely disassociated from [the abuse] ever happening.”
Julianne says nothing was done about the abuse.
“There was not a lot of repercussion for what had happened – and by the way, I’m not the only one in my family that had gone through similar things,” she explained. “And so that was a very challenging thing to come to terms with. Nobody did anything.”
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Her parents felt guilty after learning of what happened.
Speaking to Jamie Kern Lima, Julianne said her parents carried guilt upon learning of what happened to her. “At the time, when I was younger, I think they also didn’t know what to do. And were also in a position of not feeling capable or also feeling helpless,” she said. “We’ve definitely gone 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.'”
Julianne reconnected with her parents in 2020.
While going through her divorce from Brooks Laich in 2020, Julianne shared that she and her parents were able to work on their relationship. “During my divorce is when I really reconnected with my parents and they showed up for me – as my parents,” she said. “And I needed that. I reclaimed my parental relationship with them and I got to be the kid and they got to take care of me. And that was the most healing [thing].”
Watch the full conversation on Julianne’s healing journey here.
