DWTS pro Julianne Hough and Brooks Laich separated in 2020 and finalized their divorce in 2022, but that doesn’t mean she doesn’t appreciate their time together, and she recently opened up about something very important she did for her.
Despite their many disagreements towards the end of their marriage, they remain very important people in each other’s lives, partly because of what Brooks did for the reality TV star.
Julianne Hough Opened Up About How Brooks Laich Helped Her Through Her Trauma
During their marriage, Brooks Laich was crucial in helping Julianne Hough heal from her childhood trauma, and the dancer still appreciates this.
“What I needed at that time was to reconnect to my 10-year-old self. And what did I need at 10? I really needed safety, and almost, like, a father figure to come in and be that grounding force of stability,” she explained.
Brooks provided that for her.
“I think a lot of our dynamic was this little girl feeling and this stability and stable man to be there. He provided such a beautiful foundation for me to be a little girl.”
Not long ago, she opened up about the heartbreaking abuse she suffered during her childhood. One of her neighbors began sexually abusing her when she was four years old, and until August 15, on The Jamie Kern Lima Show, she had never shared it with fans.
“That was a very, very confusing time because, obviously, growing up in the Mormon culture, everything needs to be perfect, everybody needs to put on their shiny ‘We got our stuff together’ [face] and there was not a lot of repercussion for what had happened.”
Because it was so important to keep up appearances, her abuser never suffered the consequences, and for years, she blocked out many of her memories. It took her a lot of time and work to heal, and Brooks helped her a lot, for which she’s very grateful.
Why Julianne And Brooks Drifted Apart
As helpful as the stability that Brooks provided for Julianne, eventually, that dynamic ended up being the one that pushed them apart.
“I started becoming more of a woman. And when that was happening, I was starting to listen to my voice more, not the 10-year-old voice that was making decisions subconsciously. And as that was happening, things started changing.”
“I really started shifting and changing and questioning what I believed in,” she explained.
As she became more healthy and more confident in herself, Julianne also began tentatively exploring who she was. She came to a lot of realizations, including the fact that she was “not straight,” and while she was enjoying her newfound freedom, Brooks was going through the opposite process in his life and identity.
“My ex was contracting,” she said. “Because he had just got let go from playing hockey and he was going through an identity shift.”
“It was an expansion for me and a contraction for him, and we weren’t understanding each other, and I don’t think we had the maturity to come together.”
Now, with time and perspective, they both learned to love and accept each other as they are, even if things didn’t work out between them.
“We are very important, special people in each other’s lives, and we shared a really powerful season together,” Julianne concluded.
