‘Dancing With the Stars’ Alum Derek Hough Joins ‘High School Musical: The Musical: The Series’ Season 2

Six-time Dancing with the Stars champ Derek Hough will be joining the cast of High School Musical: The Musical: The Series for season 2 according to Deadline. Hough will be playing the role of Miss Jen’s [Kate Reinders] ex-boyfriend, Zack, who is not only charming, but sneaky when he returns to teach drama class at East High’s biggest rival, North High.

The show that’s an adaptation of the High School Musical franchise, highlights a group of drama students and the faculty members that work at East High. During the show’s first season, it covered the auditions all the way to the school’s first production and everything in between.

Hopefully Hough won’t suffer any injuries on set the way he did when he was performing alongside his sister, Julianne Hough, for their holiday production: Holidays With the Houghs.

“The very first move of the special I came out and did a little James Brown split and I ripped my hamstring,” he explained while a guest on The Kelly Clarkson Show. However, he didn’t let that injury stop him. Instead, he quickly came up with a solution while backstage by wrapping it using “duct tape, and then just kept going.”

Just before that injury, he underwent emergency surgery after a “severe” and “sharp pain” shot through his abdomen. The 34-year-old took to social media to tell his fans what happened after he had to have his appendix removed saying something just didn’t feel “right.”

“Woke up at 3 am with a severe and a sharp pain in my abdomen. Knew something wasn’t right,” he wrote alongside a video of himself in a hospital gown. “Turned out it was appendicitis and had surgery to remove my appendix straight away. This is me immediately after, still a little (a lot) medicated, giving [Hayley Erbert] a (sexy) little dance.”

In between all of his unexpected injuries, quite a bit has happened with his sister as well regarding her personal life. Potential divorce rumors swirled for a while with fans not knowing if she and husband Brooks Laich were planning on staying together or not shortly after the new year. Since then, Julianne has stayed busy doing her own thing, and Hough has had to come to her defense a time or two after a video of her went viral.

Julianne was seen on a table said to have had stored emotion removed from her body using energy, but fans couldn’t look past the body movement and sounds. Hough quickly came to his sister’s defense and put any rumors to rest.

Photo credit: Paul Archuleta/Getty.