Julianne Hough and Brother Derek Hough Gain New Perspective in Life After His Wife Hayley's Health Crisis: ‘Nothing Else Matters’ (Exclusive)

Mar. 15, 2025

After her sister-in-law,Hayley Erbert, 29,underwent emergency surgeryin December 2023 for a cranial hematoma, Hough, 36, says she put her differences with her brother aside to be there and support him and his wife. The star spoke to PEOPLE in advance of her new novel,Everything We Never Knew, out Aug. 13.

“Something happens and it just is like a clean slate,” Hough says about Derek, 39. “Especially with what just happened with Derek and Haley, there could have been little things just kind of looming or lingering in the background, but when you’re left with life-or-death situations, nothing else matters.”

Hough adds, “Whatever little things of competition there are or whatever it might be, those things just go away.”

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TheDancing with the Starsdancer-turned-host says her unwavering loyalty is not limited to her big brother, but the entire Hough family. Speaking about her parents and her four siblings, Hough acknowledges that their relationship is not without its difficulties. “I am so blessed to have the family that I have, even when we’re not all on the same page, when we don’t sometimes have the same beliefs or understandings of things.”

“The thing that hurts the most is when we’re not connected," she adds. “And so sometimes you do the thing that hurts the most, which is remove yourself because you’re trying to protect yourself. So our family is like any other family. We have our situations and our s—, but our deepest desire is to connect. And I think we all really have a strong desire to make that happen.”

Derek is not the only sibling the family has had to rally behind in recent years. “My sister Catherine’s had a very challenging time. She lost her partner to glioblastoma two years ago and has just had one thing after the other,” Hough explains.

Julianne Hough/Instagram

No matter the circumstance — whether it be injuries, deaths orHough’s divorce in 2022— theFootloosestar knows her family will always be there for one another. “When something tragic happens or something really hard or something where somebody needs you … It makes you realize that as humans, as people on this planet, we really do care so much,” the 36-year-old says.

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“Just in general in life, when things happen, people want to come together,” she concludes. “And I think that we’re so inundated with people fighting against each other that we have to remember that I think the goodness in humanity is that we do want to show up for each other.”

Everything We Never Knewis out Aug. 13 from Sourcebooks Landmark and is available for preorder now, wherever books are sold.

source: people.com