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The tormented childhood behind this star’s glittering career
“I remember one of my first days there I got off at the wrong train station,” she recalled to People. “I was just standing there thinking, ‘Where am I?’”
Being so young in the adult world of ballroom dance was especially challenging.
She told Cosmopolitan in 2013 that adults around her sometimes took advantage of her since she was away from her parents.
”While I was in London, I was abused, mentally, physically, everything”.
“They never got reprimanded for it because we didn’t say something,” she explained. “Instead, we just pivoted and we just moved — which is good, get out of a situation — but also that’s another thing which is for me, just pivot, pivot, pivot.”
In London, she faced a grueling schedule and constant pressure to maintain a specific image.
”I was 10 years old looking like I was 28, being a very sensual dancer,” she told Cosmo. ”I was a tormented little kid who had to put on this sexy facade because that was my job and my life. But my heart was the same, and I was this innocent little girl.
“When I look back, I think it’s so sad I have no pictures of me with a cute, bare, 10-year-old face,” she said.
Bullied in high school
After moving back to the U.S., she enrolled at the Las Vegas Academy and Alta High School. But life in America wasn’t exactly what she had expected at first.
”I got bullied in high school big-time. I had just come back from London and was the new kid. People looked at me like, ‘She thinks she’s all that,’” she told Redbook in 2014. ”And because I didn’t know how to talk to them, maybe I did come across that way? I don’t know. I got asked to prom by a guy, and he ended up ditching me that day because the girls had told him to do it.”
But even though she was bullied and battled her own demons, the gifted dancer still shone brightly, dominating competitions and earning prestigious wins by the age of 15. Around the same time, she also stepped into acting, making her film debut in Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone.
Her acting career skyrocketed with her first major role in Burlesque, followed by lead roles as Ariel in Footloose, Sherrie in Rock of Ages, and Katie in Safe Haven. She also brought Sandy to life in Fox’s 2016 live production of Grease.
Yet most fans know her best from ABC’s Dancing with the Stars.
Joining the show in 2007 as a professional dancer, she won two seasons with celebrity partners. After leaving in 2009, she returned in 2014 as a judge.
By now, you’re probably starting to guess who we’re talking about…
That’s right — all of this extraordinary talent belongs to none other than Julianne Hough.
Dating Ryan Seacrest
Julianne, who has also served as a judge on America’s Got Talent, has shared that dance was the anchor that gave her confidence when she felt lost. Over the years, she’s endured public scrutiny — from headline-making relationships and breakups to a controversial Halloween costume and body-shaming critiques.