Julianne Hough shed a few tears as she opened up about the year she married her now ex-husband, former NHL player Brooks Laich.
“He had a really rough last few years of his career,” Hough, 36, said on the Monday, August 12, episode of the “Armchair Expert” podcast. “He was injured and then he got traded before his team that he had been there for almost 12 years won the Stanley Cup. It makes me want to cry because I feel for him so bad.”
Hough got emotional as she spoke about 2017, which was also a milestone year for her and Laich’s relationship. “That was the year we got married and the year everything kinda started to unravel,” she said.
When host Dax Shephard asked whether Hough has thoughts about “another time, another place,” with Laich, 41, the former Dancing With the Stars pro admitted that she does — but she’s also at peace with the decision to end their relationship.
“It wasn’t right. That can be a hard thing to fully accept,” she said. “I feel like our relationship and our marriage was exactly right, and the end of it is right, too. We both have regrets that it didn’t work out, because I don’t think we had the maturity to come together. He was contracting while I was expanding. We just couldn’t find each other in that.”
Hough noted that she and Laich have “accepted what happened” but the twosome are “sad that it didn’t work out.” She added, “He’s got the greatest heart that I could ever have the privilege of being with.”
Hough revealed that she asked for a separation from Laich in September 2019. Days later, her dogs died, which she called “very tragic.”
“It was an unraveling,” she said. “Everything that I had ever known, that I had put in place for my control and my protection … I had this marriage to this guy who represented more of a father figure to me, and while he was changing, I was changing. Uprooted everything.”
While she initially felt like she “blew up my entire life,” Hough reframed her mindset. “I actually get to start in an intentional way that I get to design and create a life that is actually coming from my soul,” she said.
It would be six months before Hough and Laich went public with their split in May 2020. “We have lovingly and carefully taken the time we have needed to arrive at our decision to separate,” they said in a joint statement at the time. “We share an abundance of love and respect for one another and will continue to lead with our hearts from that place. We kindly request your compassion and respect for our privacy moving forward.”
Five months after sharing their separation, Hough filed for divorce from Laich. Us Weekly confirmed that the duo’s divorce was finalized in June 2022.
