Julianne Hough is looking back on her past relationships in a new interview and is reflecting on her failed marriage to former Canadian ice hockey player Brooks Laich.
Julianne, 36, and Brooks, 41, started dating in 2014 and announced their engagement in 2015. They tied the knot in 2017 but announced their separation in 2020. After a brief reconciliation, they filed for divorce later that year, and it was finalized in 2022.
While both have since moved on, and Brooks is now engaged to Icelandic CrossFit athlete Katrín Davíðsdóttir, there are apparently still regrets about how it all went down.
The Dancing with the Stars host joined Dax Shepard for his Armchair Expert podcast and spoke candidly about the end of their relationship and why it was the "right" way to end.
"I feel like our relationship and our marriage was exactly right, and the end of it is right too," she said while reliving their early days and the year they got married, when Brooks was coming off a particularly bad NHL season.
"We both have regrets that it didn't work out because I don't think we had the maturity to come together," she said, recalling 2017. "That was the year we got married… and the year that everything kind of started to unravel."
She continued: "He was contracting while I was expanding. We couldn't find each other in that, we just went into our own protective modes. So we've definitely accepted what happened, but we're sad that it didn't work out. Because I've only dated great human beings."
Julianne remained complimentary of her ex, however, and they still maintain a strong friendship (they were both in her brother Derek Hough's wedding party last year), saying: "He's got the greatest heart that I could've ever had the privilege of being with."
She also spoke about her three-year long relationship with Ryan Seacrest, 49, and said she was concerned that the perception when she started seeing the media personality, who was already well established at the time, was that she was just using him to get ahead.
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"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," she explained. "But then I had this insecurity that I was like, I don't ever want anybody to think that I'm with him for this reason."
Julianne expressed that she didn't want her boyfriend to feel that way, adding: "I overcompensated, was malleable to fit into exactly what somebody needed me to be for them to be happy."
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"And 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."
"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 everybody I've ever dated, but have I? I don't wanna overanalyze it because every person I've also dated has been a very good person."