Julianne Hough Reveals Tragic Details Of How Her Dogs Died

Even years later, Julianne Hough is still grappling with the loss of her beloved pets Lexi, 11, and Harley, 8.

The "Dancing with the Stars"alum turned co-host first revealed her two dogs' sudden deaths in 2019.

Five years later, Julianne Hough is sharing the tragic details of how they were lost.

Years after revealing the sudden loss of her two dogs, Hough has now disclosed for the first time how they were killed.

“I had asked for a separation,” she recalled during a recent episode of "The Jamie Kern Lima Show," referring to her divorce from Brooks Laich. “And then ten days later my dogs were killed by coyotes.”

“I woke up before my phone even rang, and I knew, and I picked up the phone, and my assistant at the time was just like screaming," she continued, noting that she’d “never had coyotes in her yard” before, and there were gates. “I had two dogs that were my kids. I had them for 11 years and for eight years. And they were everything to me.”

While coyotes tragically took her pups, Hough says she is grateful for two things. “That they went together, I'm so grateful they went together,” she told host Jamie Kern Lima.

“Two, I'm grateful that usually how it happens is very quick and that we got their bodies," the "DWTS" pro added. "But at that time I was like, ‘Oh that was the unraveling of the absolute safety of like unconditional love.’”

Lexi and Harley’s deaths occurred not only during her breakup with Brooks Laich but also while she was navigating a split with her longtime assistant and launching her new company, Kinrgy.

“I felt so out of alignment,” the professional dancer recalled as tears fell down her cheek. “I'm about to start this company which is all about helping people connect to themselves and living their most expanded free self and assistant and I are breaking up, and I'm asking for a separation because something's not working."

She continued, "My dogs that represented unconditional love and safety are gone—I'm like, ‘What am I doing? I'm blowing up my life.’”

In 2023, Hough welcomed a new pup into her family, Sunny.

“Sunny, you have brought so much love and literal sunshine into my life,” she wrote on Instagram last summer. “I can’t remember a time without you."

"Lexi & Harley would have loved and played with you every day and I know that they sent you to me, only when I was ready to open my heart and love again," Hough added of her new furball. "You cracked me open sweetheart.”

Earlier this month, Hough opened up about her difficult childhood, recalling a particularly challenging period when she and her brother, Derek Hough, were sent overseas by their parents to live and train with dance coaches Corky and Shirley Ballas.

This followed a revelation she made to her mom about being sexually assaulted by a neighbor.

“My first experience was when I was about four years old," she said, per Us Weekly. "[It was] a neighbor in our cul-de-sac. 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," she added. "And so that was a very challenging thing to come to terms with, which is that nobody did anything."

"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," Hough said. "It immediately sets a precedent of: other people have the power.”

The "DWTS" co-host later revealed that those same neighbors abused Julianne's brother, Derek. “My brother was hung upside down and there was a gun put to his head. There were all sorts of things by these people,” she said.

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