Julianne Hough Reveals Sexual Assault At Age 4 Led Her To 'Block Out' Childhood

Julianne Hough has courageously shared her harrowing experience of sexual abuse, revealing that a neighbor abused her at just four years old.

In a deeply emotional convo, the actress and professional dancer opened up about the trauma she endured during her early childhood, letting down her walls and shedding light on a painful chapter of her past.

Not only did she reveal that she is a victim of sexual abuse, but Julianne Hough says she was not the only one in her family who had a traumatic childhood.

The "Dancing With The Stars" host opened up about the childhood trauma she endured on a recent episode of “The Jamie Kern Lima Show."

“My first experience was when I was about four years old. [It was] a neighbor in our cul-de-sac," she revealed, per Us Weekly. "I’ve actually never said that out loud to someone in an interview before. That was a very confusing time, because growing up in the Mormon culture, everything needs to be perfect.”

“And by the way, I’m not the only one in my family that had gone through similar things. And so that was a very challenging thing to come to terms with, which is that nobody did anything,” she continued. “Being so young, and those being your first experiences — whether it be physical, mental, sexual — those abuses of power to someone who is vulnerable to it — it immediately sets a precedent of: other people have the power.”

The "Dancing With The Stars" host later confirmed that her family has severed all ties with the neighbor who abused her.

Julianne then became emotional while revisiting the toughest parts of her childhood, tearing up as she recalls the moment when her mother tried to support her through the trauma.

“When I came back and told my mom at four, my clothes were inside out, she asked why they were inside out," Julianne recalled. "I said, ‘I don’t want to talk about it.’ And she said, ‘Tell me what happened.'"

"My only way of describing it — because we weren’t allowed carbonation as kids — was saying, ‘I felt like I had a Sprite bottle between my legs.’ So she freaked out and was panicking and her response was, ‘Get up and move.’ The reaction thing was let’s move out of this neighborhood," the singer recalled--and they did.

Due to her sexual assault incident, she “blocked out” her childhood memories.

“I forgot about it," she admitted. "Then other things happened later in my childhood and at about 15, and I started sharing those things but I forgot about the neighbor thing."

"It wasn’t until I started doing the work recently. That’s why I blocked out from 10 to 15 because I had completely disassociated from that happening," the actress continued.

Julianne went on to disclose more about her troubled childhood, including a harrowing period when she and her brother Derek Hough were shipped off overseas by their parents to live and train with dance coaches Corky and Shirley Ballas, which only added layers to her already painful past.

She says it wasn’t an easy road to forgiveness with her parents, who “felt guilty” over their initial handling of the issue.

“We both are experiencing different things even if it’s the same circumstances," the "Footloose" actress said. "For myself, it was all of my experiences about what happened to me, and in their experience, they have their own guilt and shame of other things that they were trying to do in the moment. So they can’t hear what happened because they were having their own experience.”

During the interview, Julianne also opened up about her 2020 divorce from Brooks Laich and how it has allowed her to reconnect with her parents.

“During my divorce is when I really reconnected with my parents and they showed up for me — as my parents,” she said. “And I needed that. I reclaimed my parental relationship with them and I got to be the kid and they got to take care of me. And that was the most healing [thing].”

If you or someone you know has been sexually assaulted, contact the National Sexual Assault Hotline at 1-800-656-HOPE (4673).