'Dancing With the Stars' Fan-Favorite Announces Engagement
Dancing With the Stars fan-favorite pro-turned-judge Derek Hough is engaged! The professional dancer announced his engagement to longtime girlfriend Hayley Erbert on Instagram Thursday during their vacation in Monaco. They become another romantic success story for Dancing With the Stars, as the two met on the ABC series.
"It's only the beginning...the beginning of forever," Hough and Erbert captioned the joint Instagram post, adding a heart emoji. They tagged the photo as "engaged," just to make sure there wasn't any speculation about the meaning of the post. Hough, 37, and Erbert, 27, also tagged Paris Jewelers, which created Evert's engagement ring. Paris Jewelers shared another photo from the engagement session by Sheena Meekins. Chau Lui, Paris Jewelers co-owner, designed the ring while listing to the couple's favorite song, "Someone to Stay."
The news was met with plenty of congratulations from Erbert and Hough's DWTS colleagues. "Congratulations!!!!!! About time man!!!" Sasha Farber wrote. "Yay!!! Congratulations... so happy for you both!!" Allison Holker added. "OH MY GOSH... I AM SO HAPPY FOR YOU BOTH... love you so much," Lindsay Arnold wrote.
Hough is a former pro dancer on DWTS and returned to the show as a judge in Season 29. Erbert was a dancer on the show for seven seasons and joined four DWTS live tours. They started dating in 2015 and performed together on DWTS during an October 2020 episode. In a 2018 interview with Entertainment Tonight, Hough said the two were in no rush to get married, adding that Erbert is "really down to earth and just [has] a good heart and a beautiful soul."
"Do I feel pressured getting married? No, you know what, I don't, actually," Hough said in 2018. "I'm building a house right now. I feel like I've been building it for 25 years now. It's taken a long time, so for me, I'm looking at things in stages, and for me, that's going to be the next stage. So, I can get settled, physically grounded, physically settled. And then who knows where life takes us."
During the early days of the coronavirus pandemic, Hough and Erbert were quarantined together, which only strengthened their relationship. "By the way, I don't believe any couple had ever spent that much time with each other consistently, it's so unusual," he told Entertainment Tonight in October 2020. "So, the fact that it's made our relationship stronger is great. We started a YouTube channel, we cook together, we do arts and crafts and things, and it is always a good sign when you are very content to sit with someone on the couch and fall asleep with four animals next to you and be like, 'This is great, I like this.'"
Hough is expected to return to DWTS for its 31st season, alongside fellow judges Len Goodman, Bruno Tonioli, and Carrie Ann Inaba. However, Season 31 will be streamed live on Disney+ instead of airing on ABC, which replaced it with Bachelor in Paradise this fall. Hough recently told ET he was confused about the announcement at first, but he is excited to see DWTS take a lead role in the new television landscape.