Julianne Hough Reveals Why Her Relationship With Ryan Seacrest Ended in 2013
Aug. 12 2024, Published 3:10 p.m. ET
Julianne Hough shared more insight into why she and Ryan Seacrest split in 2013.
While on Dax Shepard's "Armchair Expert" podcast, released on Monday, August 12, the 36-year-old star was asked about dating the TV personality, 49.
“I would imagine it would be so exciting and so privileged and so romantic and then also I would feel like I was losing myself to all of that,” Shepard said.
"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.”
Though the blonde beauty was well-known in Hollywood, she admitted she was nervous about people thinking she was just using Seacrest for his connections.
“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.”
The Footloose starlet said this is something she does in other relationships.
“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 noted. “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.”
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“I had no idea that was, like, a repeated pattern,” she added. “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.’”
The Dancing With the Stars co-host had nothing but kind things to say about Seacrest, whom she called a "lovely person."
She moved on with Brooks Laich, whom she married in 2017. However, they went their separate ways in 2020.
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"It wasn’t right. That can be a hard thing to fully accept," she dished about their failed romance. "We both have regrets that it didn’t work out, because I don’t think we had the maturity to come together."
"He was contracting while I was expanding. We just couldn’t find each other in that," she added.