Derek Hough revealed the painful reality behind his rise to fame, recalling a childhood marked by brutal bullying.
Hough said he spent his childhood desperately trying to fit in until dance gave him an escape and a sense of direction.
“I was kind of a scrawny little kid,” he admitted during an episode of “The Bossticks.” “And it’s funny, as I’ve gotten older, I’ve realized that I’m pretty awkward, actually. I’m actually kind of an awkward person,” Hough said, claiming the personality trait might come from his dad.
“The reason why I say that is because, as a young kid, I really found it hard to connect with kids at school and to hang out,” he told hosts Lauryn and Michael Bosstick. “And I didn’t have the little cliques, and so I was always on the outside just trying to fit in.”
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Hough confessed that “being a dancer didn’t help” his case and he often got the “c–p beaten out of [him].”
“At one school a kid punched me in the face. I was bleeding everywhere,” he added. “But then I retaliated and started beating him up, and then I got expelled from school.”
“One time, this girl kind of liked me when we were kids. We’re talking like 10 years old, 11 years old. And a few of the guys didn’t like that, so they found me in a corner, and they beat me up.”
“Even my neighborhood, where I lived in my neighborhood, we had these neighbors who were — bullying is kind of a too nice of a word. They like tormented me where they would like hang me up in a tree by my ankles and put a gun to my head and spit on me or hog-tie me in a field. And it was, I was scared. I would have night terrors.”
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Hough explained he was a “terrified kid” growing up, saying he was “scared of the dark, scared of my shadow. Like, just scared and constantly on edge.”
At 12 years old, Hough moved to London to study under Corky and Shirley Ballas, parents of fellow “Dancing with the Stars” pro Mark Ballas. That’s when life changed for the now professional dancer.
“Once I was there, I felt like, on track, you know? And I felt safe,” he recalled. “I actually felt safe being away, and I felt like I had a goal. I had a vision. I knew what I was doing.”
“Each day I was like, ‘This is the plan.’ You know, there was not this sense of floating around and being scared. It was like I had clarity and that clarity is power.”
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Hough first opened up about his experience with bullying in an October Instagram post.
“Recently, I had a heartfelt conversation at a children’s hospital event where we were raising money for mental health programs. We talked a lot about bullying, not just the kind I faced growing up, but the kind that happens online now, the kind that so many teens and adults deal with every day,” he said at the time.
He encouraged everyone to reflect on the kind of culture people want to build.
“Before we post or comment, let’s pause and think: are we building each other up or tearing each other down? Are we focusing on kindness and good intentions? As I step into fatherhood, I’m thinking about the world we’re shaping for our kids and how we can all be a little more mindful of the voices we choose to amplify. Let’s make that a conversation worth having,” he wrote.
