Julianne Hough has opened up about the demise of her relationship with Ryan Seacrest, hinting that their differing levels of fame contributed to their breakup.
Hough, now 36, spoke candidly about her time with Seacrest, now 49, during an episode of Dax Shepard‘s “Armchair Expert” podcast. Shepard, also 49, probed about what it was like to date Seacrest from 2010 to 2013.
Shepard surmised that dating Seacrest must have been both exhilarating and overwhelming, to which Hough agreed, saying, “That was exactly the dynamic. The rug was swept up from underneath me, and I was just flying and I was experiencing things that I didn’t even know existed.”
At the time, Hough was already a star in her own right, but she felt pressured to prove that she wasn’t using Seacrest for his connections to even bigger celebrities.
“I had this insecurity that I was like, ‘I don’t ever want anybody to think that I’m with him for this reason,'” she explained. “And so I then started playing smaller. I know that that was his experience in past situations and stuff, and so I again overcompensated, [I] was malleable to fit into exactly what somebody needed me to be for them to be happy.”
Hough confessed that she has repeated similar patterns in other relationships because she craves the feeling of being loved by others.
“What I’ve realized over the years is I don’t know if I’ve ever truly been in love with someone, but I have loved the feeling of being loved — and so let me be what that needs to be so that I can be loved,” she said. “And then because I’m so filled with love from someone, of course I love you. I love everyone. I’ve been in love with everyone I’ve ever dated, but have I? I don’t want to overanalyze it, because every person I’ve also dated has been a very good person.”
Dancing with her heart! Julianne Hough has had her fair share of relationships before marrying — and later separating — her ex-husband, Brooks Laich. The Dancing With the Stars host was introduced to Laich by her Curve costar Teddy Sears in December 2013. Laich and Hough were dating […]
While Hough holds no ill will toward Seacrest, whom she called a “lovely person,” she said that she now feels like she was “so oblivious” and “dissociative” during their relationship when it came to the disparity between their careers.
“I had no idea that was, like, a repeated pattern,” Hough recalled. “Eventually, I remember when I decided to break things off, I had a lot of these Brentwood moms and producers in that world that were like, ‘What are you doing?’ And I was like, ‘What do you mean?’ They’re like, ‘Your life is completely set up.’ And I was like, ‘But I didn’t build it.’ I was like, ‘I need to create this. Competitively, it’s not mine. I need to feel the pride of doing it.’”
Hough and Seacrest ultimately called it quits in 2013. “Honestly, their schedules were too hectic,” a source said. “It just got to be too much. I think they both just sort of knew they couldn’t do it anymore. The travel and lifestyle got to be too much.”
Hough moved on with Brooks Laich, whom she married in 2017 after four years of dating. The duo separated in 2020 and finalized their divorce two years later.
