Julianne Hough is at a great place in her professional life. Her acting career has picked up steam thanks to Footloose and three other movies set to hit the silver screen this year. But things weren’t always looking so bright for the Dancing With the Stars alum.
In an interview set to appear in Cosmopolitan’s February Issue, the 24-year-old reveals she was abused while she attended a well-known London dance academy as a child.
“While I was in London, I was abused, mentally, physically, everything,” Hough said, adding that the abuse got worse “when I started hitting puberty, when I started becoming a woman and stopped being a little girl.”
Hough, who’s also known for dating media wunderkind Ryan Seacrest, also talked to Entertainment Tonight about the abuse, saying she’s “been through certain things that have sucked the life out of me, and just the light about me was gone. I was just a dark person.”
The dancer-turned-actress says she’s using her traumatic experiences to help her understand the character she plays in the Nicholas Sparks romance, Safe Haven. The upcoming flick, which also features Josh Duhamel, stars Hough as Katie, a young woman who leaves an abusive relationship behind.
“Being Katie, I relate a lot to her,” she told ET. “The fact that she had been in one situation that just sucked the life out of her, and it was a bad situation, and she needed to change and move on and kind of find her own again. And through that you find love and everything.”
Thoughts? Sound off below.
