Julianne Hough shares she was sexually abused at age 4

Originally appeared on E! Online

Content warning: This article discusses sexual and child abuse.

Julianne Hough is opening up about a traumatic experience.

The 36-year-old recently shared, for the first time publicly, allegations about getting sexually abused as a preschooler.

“My first experience was when I was about 4 years old,” she said during the Aug. 15 episode of The Jamie Kern Lima Show. “By a neighbor in in our cul-de-sac. I've actually never said that out loud to anybody in an interview before.”

Noting she wasn’t the only one in her family who endured similar experiences, she continued, “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 the shiny, ‘We've-got-our-stuff-together.’ And there was not a lot of repercussion for what had happened. So that was a very challenging thing to come to terms with, that nobody did anything.”

Hough went on to explain that — while “other things happened” around the age of 15, at which time she began sharing her experiences with her family — it wasn’t until recent years when she “started really doing this work” that she remembered being abused at 4.

The "Dancing With the Stars" co-host believes her parents felt “helpless” to address her allegations when she was younger, but has since discussed her past with them in a meaningful way.

“Now that we've had these conversations, they've said those things,” she explained. “At the time, of course, you're like, ‘Do more.’”

However, Hough and her parents were able to reconnect amid her divorce from now ex-husband Brooks Laich, to whom she was married between 2017 and 2022.

“They showed up for me as my parents and I needed that,” she noted of that period in her life. “I reclaimed my parental relationship with them and I got to be the kid and they got to take care of me. That was the most healing time for us.”

However, Hough and her parents were able to reconnect amid her divorce from now ex-husband Brooks Laich, to whom she was married between 2017 and 2022.

“They showed up for me as my parents and I needed that,” she noted of that period in her life. “I reclaimed my parental relationship with them and I got to be the kid and they got to take care of me. That was the most healing time for us.”

She continued, “I was in a vulnerable place of like, ‘I don't have anything to protect myself, I am completely raw, so maybe I can hear you more now, and even though I didn't think that you were understanding at the time, maybe you are, and I can actually receive it now because my guard is down and my heart is open.’ And so that's what when we really went through more of our healing and communication as adults.”

The "Safe Haven" star also reflected on the process of losing her power through these experiences, and then reclaiming her voice.

“I think being so young,” she began, “and those being your first experiences — whether it be physical, mental, sexual —those abuses of power to someone who is vulnerable to it, it immediately sets a precedent of, ‘Other people have the power.’”

She explained how, in turn, she built up “layers of protection” around herself, but noted, “As you build layers, you get further and further away from your authentic truth and yourself. And so that's been the delayering of just really trying to understand like, ‘What is my voice?’”

But building those layers was a means of survival, she explained, which she takes pride in now.

“There's so many people that do what they need to do to survive,” Hough explained. “And we should be so grateful for that part and that version of us and know that as an adult, like, ‘I see you now and you're not alone. I'm here. And I'm actually going to be there in that, that past version of yourself. And we're going to go back to that moment and you're going to be protected.’”

As she later put it, “That's the lesson that I've learned in the last few years, which is with vulnerability comes strength.”