Julianne Hough and Ryan Seacrest dated from 2010 to 2013, and while fans and followers got to witness the red-carpet appearances and yacht getaways, life behind the scenes was not so picture perfect.
Starting from the beginning of their seemingly whirlwind romance, “The rug was swept up from underneath me and I was just flying,” the Footloose star confessed on the August 12 episode of Armchair Expert, Dax Shepard’s podcast.
Hough also gushed to Glamour in a 2012 interview, “I had another boyfriend, Chuck Wicks [when I met Ryan], whom I met on Dancing With the Stars. While we were dating, we went on Ryan’s radio show together. The interview’s on YouTube, and I blush when I hear it because Ryan is hitting on me the entire time. At the end, Ryan said something like, ‘You guys really have something special!’ And I thought to myself, ‘He’s so full of s**t right now!’ When Chuck and I broke up, I wanted to be single. That lasted five months. Then Ryan and I went on a date.”
“Ryan and I are very alike. When we work out with a trainer, we’ll die before we stop, like, to the point where we can’t breathe… We both like that perfection in ourselves, and we want to make our relationship like that.” Added the Dancing with the Stars host.
TV personality Ryan Seacrest (L) and dancer Julianne Hough arrive at the 70th Annual Golden Globe Awards held at The Beverly Hilton Hotel on January 13, 2013 in Beverly Hills, California. Everything Ryan Seacrest and Julianne Hough have spilled about their past relationship.
Jason Merritt/Getty Images
As things continued to blossom, the 36-year-old shared on a 2010 episode of The Ellen DeGeneres Show. “He’s phenomenal. He’s romantic. He’s not even in town, and I got in my car and there’s flowers everywhere.”
And the feeling was indeed mutual as Seacrest took to talk shows like Chelsea Lately in 2010 to gush about his relationship with Hough, calling her “the best part of everyday”
But as soon as the relationship surpassed the two-year mark, Hough began to feel uneasy about fans, followers, and media opinions. In the same Armchair interview, she continued to share, “And I was experiencing things that I didn’t even know existed. [Then] I had this insecurity that I was like, ‘I don’t ever want anybody to think that I’m with him for [the wrong] reasons.”
The Utah native went on to tearfully confess to both Shepard and co-host Monica Padman, “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? Your life is completely set up.’ And I was like, ‘But I didn’t build it.”
Ryan Seacrest and Julianne Hough attend the “Schiaparelli And Prada: Impossible Conversations” Costume Institute Gala at the Metropolitan Museum of Art on May 7, 2012 in New York City. Look back at the highs and lows Ryan Seacrest and Julianne Hough have shared about their past relationship.
Dimitrios Kambouris/Getty Images
Since their breakup in 2013, the Emmy-winning hosts have kept a somewhat low-profile regarding comments about each other’s following romantic partners.
However, when former Ottawa Senators forward Brooks Laich and Hough tied the knot in 2017, The new Wheel of Fortune host shared on Live with Kelly and Ryan that Hough looked “stunning” in her custom Marchesa gown for the ceremony on the lake at Coeur d’Alene Resort in Idaho.
“I know this family,” Seacrest continued. “They are terrific people…how super talented she is. So congratulations, Julianne.”
“She feels the same as I do,” the 49-year-old—who dated Aubrey Paige for three years before they split earlier in 2024—said on a 2022 episode of his radio show On Air With Ryan Seacrest when Hough was a guest. “There is nothing uncomfortable about [our relationship] because we remain friends for years and still are.”
He added, commented that his co-hosts “don’t understand the concept that one can remain friends after a breakup. Or after dating or whatever happened.”
