Julianne Hough reflects on the ‘vulnerable’ coming out journey

Julianne Hough had a “beautiful epiphany” that led her to understand that she was “not straight.”

“We were married [at the time]” said Hough, 36, during a recent appearance on the “Jamie Kern Lima” podcast, referring to then-husband Brooks Laich. “Coming out is one of the most vulnerable and powerful things you can do. I think for me it’s not about being straight, gay or queer, it’s more about learning what love is, and loving people.”

The Dancing with the stars pro-turned host further revealed that she initially didn’t “know what [she’s] attracted to” but chose to stay with Laich, now 41.

“That’s the freedom of love that I started to experience in seeing people, because I was able to take away a level of protection instead of being so internalized,” she said. “So I started seeing people and seeing their hearts and seeing their beauty and essence. I thought, ‘Wow, I love people and I don’t know if it’s a sexual attraction or this attraction, but all I see is people.’ That was such a beautiful revelation.”

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Hough came out publicly in a September 2019 profile for Women’s healthnoting that she told Laich she was “not straight.” In January 2020, Laich spoke exclusively We weekly that Hough’s “beautiful” explanation inspired him to become a better person and that he always accepted her “heart.”

“I’ve always loved people, but I haven’t just been silent and just seen them and showed them their essence and their beauty,” Hough noted earlier this month while hosting Jamie Kern Lima. “It wasn’t just an exchange of fun energy. …The more I started to connect with the 28- [or] As the 29-year-old in me, I could also see other people that way.”

Seeing the “souls” of individuals helped unravel new feelings in Hough. “I had all these activations happening,” she recalled. “I started having these beautiful unity experiences with people where I was sitting there having a conversation and I thought about a black and white dog and the number 12 came up. I’d say, “Did you have a dog that was black and white when you were 12?” And then they were like, ‘Wait, what? How did you know?’”

Hough was then inspired to explore the “wild journey” of her curiosity.

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“I wanted to understand all these different ways to connect more with yourself and trust yourself more,” Hough said. “While I was doing that and taking all this stuff apart, my ex got signed because he had just been let go from hockey and he was going through [an] identity change.”

According to Hough, she and Laich stopped seeing eye to eye and were “doing” [their] own thing.” (Hough and Laich separated in May 2020 and finalized their divorce two years later.)

“We’ve had this conversation now and we wish we had had the maturity to come together,” Hough said. “And that there might have been a different outcome. But I think everything happened the way it should have happened.”