‘Dancing With the Stars’ Alum Julianne Hough Reveals She’s ‘Not Straight’

Julianne Hough is opening up about her fluid sexuality for the first time publicly as well as how the admission strengthened the Dancing With the Stars alum’s marriage to husband Brooks Laich. In a cover story for Women’s Health, Hough revealed that growing more confident in herself and who she is as a person allowed her to open up about parts of herself even the man closest to her didn’t know.

“I [told him], ‘You know I’m not straight, right?’ And he was like, ‘I’m sorry what?” I was like, ‘I’m not. But I choose to be with you,’” she recalled. “I think there’s a safety with my husband now that I’m unpacking all of this, and there’s no fear of voicing thing that I’ve been afraid to admit or that I’ve had shame or guilt about because of what I’ve been told or how I was raised.”

Being able to share these things with one another actually allowed the two to enter into a different stage of their life together.

“I was connecting to the woman inside that doesn’t need anything, versus the little girl that looked to him to protect me,” the America’s Got Talent judge explained. “I was like ‘Is he going to love this version of me?’ But the more I dropped into my most authentic self, the more attracted he was to me. Now we have a more intimate relationship.”

That doesn’t mean she and Laich are going to stay stagnant as people now that they’ve reached this place in their relationship.

“I’m going to shift for the rest of my life. I’m not like ‘Oh I got it,’” Hough explained. “But I’m trusting myself now, and when I’m totally connected to me, I feel full. I want others to see that in themselves too.”

Photo credit: Getty images/Ethan Miller