14 DAY TRIAL // You might not be able to tell it by her winning, broad smile, but Julianne Hough did not have a very happy childhood. Besides having to work very hard to become a professional dancer, she was also abused as a child, she reveals in a new interview with Cosmopolitan magazine.
It all started when she was 10 years old and she joined brother Derek at London’s prestigious Italia Conti Academy of Arts with the goal to become a professional dancer, the best she could be.
She achieved that (and then some, considering she’s an accomplished singer and actress as well) but it came at a cost: growing up among strangers without any parental supervision meant the strangers could – and did – take advantage of her.
“I was abused, mentally, physically, everything,” Julianne tells Cosmo in this month’s interview.
“I was 10 years old looking like I was 28, being a very sensual dancer,” she adds.
That would be her “mask,” the façade she would always put on because she did not want the world to see the scared little kid inside.
“I was a tormented little kid who had to put on this façade because that was my job and my life. But my heart was the same, and I was this innocent little girl. I wanted so much love,” she says.
The abuse continued in time, Julianne recalls, it did not stop when she grew up. If anything, it worsened.
Even so, she doesn’t want to name the person or persons who hurt her like this.
“I'm a very forgiving person, and I don't want to hurt anybody. What's past is past,” she says.
In the same Cosmo interview, Julianne also talks about her boyfriend Ryan Seacrest, how they were cut off from the rest of the world when Superstorm Sandy hit, and her latest movie, “Safe Haven,” which comes out on February 14 and stars Josh Duhamel.
Make sure you also check out the video below.