Los Angeles, 2 December 2025. The Hollywood Hills are bathed in that rare winter haze, the kind that softens the edges of palm trees and makes the city feel almost tender. Inside a sun-drenched recovery room at Cedars-Sinai, the air hums with the faint scent of lavender oil and fresh eucalyptus—Julianne Hough’s quiet armor against the sterile. At 37, she perches on the edge of the bed, legs tucked under her, clad in an oversized cashmere sweater that swallows her frame. Her blonde hair falls loose, unstyled, framing a face still pale from the fluorescent lights of the OR. No makeup. No filters. Just Jules, fresh from a third laparoscopic surgery for the endometriosis that’s shadowed her since she was 20, the one that burst mid-jitterbug on live TV in 2008 and nearly sidelined her Dancing with the Stars dreams forever.
She didn’t want this shared. Not after the silence that stretched from Thanksgiving—a routine scan turning urgent, symptoms flaring like a bad routine she couldn’t shake: the crushing cramps that bent her double during rehearsals for her 2026 Broadway return in POTUS: Or, Behind Every Great Dumbass Are Seven Women Trying to Keep America Sane. Whispers had circulated: Julianne sidelined. Julianne in pain. Fans, from Salt Lake City studios to London academies, flooded her feeds with virtual hugs, playlists of her country EP Sounds of the Season looping like lullabies. Derek posted a single photo of her old pointe shoes, laced with a caption: “Sis is fighting quiet. Send light.” Her foundation, focused on de-stigmatizing endo since her 2017 second surgery, saw donations spike—women sharing stories of their own hidden battles, the disease affecting 1 in 10, often dismissed as “just cramps.”
For ten days, nothing. The world waited, replaying her triumphs: the two Mirrorballs, the Footloose fire, the raw vulnerability of freezing her eggs in 2020 because endo whispered doubts about motherhood. She’d gone public in 2018, post-second lap: “It reached a point where surgery was the right option,” she’d told Glamour, turning pain into power. But this third? A flare-up post-divorce from Brooks Laich in 2022, compounded by the relentless grind of Extra hosting and DWTS judging returns. The surgery: exploratory, excision of rogue tissue clinging like an ex who won’t let go, leaving her voice hushed by anesthesia’s afterglow.
Now, at 2:17 p.m., she nods to her assistant, who balances a phone on a stack of wellness journals. No glam squad. No cue cards. Just Julianne, voice a touch breathy from the breathing tube, eyes locking on the lens with the grace that’s grounded her through tabloid storms and transformation whispers—those endless plastic surgery rumors about her lips, her cheeks, her “unrecognizable” glow, all noise she’d never fed.
“She never wanted to worry anyone,” Derek murmurs off-camera, his hand on her shoulder, the brother who’d shared London basements and basement studios. “But some truths… they eventually have to be shared.”
Julianne exhales, a soft sound like the release in a perfect port de bras. When she speaks, it’s not the polished poise of Grease Live!‘s Sandy or the sassy edge of DWTS critiques. It’s gentle, unsteady—a sister’s whisper in the wee hours, laced with the honesty of a woman who’s danced through endometriosis’s chaos for 17 years.
“I… I kept it close this time,” she begins, pausing to tuck a strand behind her ear, fingers trembling just a fraction. “Y’know me—always the fixer, the smiler. Turn pain into a plié, right? But Thanksgiving… the cramps hit like a bad lift. Collapsed during family Zoom with Derek and Hayley—thought it was stress from the holidays, the egg-freeze follow-ups. Turns out, it was endo staging a comeback. Third lap in seventeen years. Docs went in to map it, cut what they could. Woke up feeling like I’d run a marathon in heels.”
Her laugh is a feather-light thing, eyes crinkling—the same crinkle that charmed audiences in Safe Haven, where she played the girl chasing forever.
The truth unfolds then, unvarnished and urgent. It started subtly: fatigue she blamed on jet lag from her Salt Lake homecoming show in November, where she’d bared her soul on cracked mirrors and basement dreams. The bloating, the fatigue that stole her appetite during Extra segments. By Turkey Day, the pain was a vise, landing her in ER with a diagnosis echoing 2008’s nightmare—the one where she danced through agony with Cody Linley, appendix nearly bursting on national TV, Edyta stepping in while she healed. “Endo doesn’t play fair,” she says now, voice steadying. “It hides, it flares, it makes you question if you’ll ever feel… whole.”
Derek squeezes her hand; a nurse nods from the corner, endo warrior herself.
“There’s still a long road,” Julianne continues, gaze drifting to the window where LA sprawls, golden and unforgiving. “Hormone therapy to chase the remnants, check-ins to guard the future—maybe kids, maybe not, but mine either way. Might not snap into splits clean for a bit, or host without a heating pad nearby. But I believe in healing… in the movement that mends the body… and in every prayer you sent while I was under. I felt ’em. Like a chorus in the OR, lifting me when the anesthesia pulled me down.”
Something almost holy laces her words—faith, the Hough kind, woven from Utah roots and relentless reinvention, tempered by trials: the 2008 diagnosis at 20, the 2017 second surgery that left her sidelined but stronger, the 2022 divorce that cracked her open to self-love. She’s turned endo into advocacy, partnering with EndoFound to fund research, sharing in 2020 how egg-freezing was her “fuck you” to fear. Now, it radiates, steady as a spotlight on a solo.
“You held space for me,” she says, voice warming like dawn on the Wasatch. “Lit candles in Orem studios, where I first laced up. Streamed my holiday EP from Footloose fans in Nashville. Posted ballet hearts from London alums—y’know, those Italia Conti throwbacks? That warmth… it’s like a hand in the wings, saying I’m still here.”
Tears trace silent paths, unapologetic. “Still fighting. Still holding on to love—like it’s the light I need most right now. Derek’s, the brother who carried my bags at twelve. Hayley’s, my sister-in-heart through her own storms. Yours, the ones who’ve danced with my story.”
Because she’s Julianne—the eternal alchemist, the girl who turned basement boogie into Broadway bows—she can’t resist. She hums first, tentative, then lets a verse of her unreleased “Cracked Mirror” drift: “In the shatter, I found my line… every break a better design…” Breathy, yes, but buoyant, the melody swaying like hips in a cha-cha.
The video fades as the room wraps around her—hugs, whispers, Derek joking “Sis, that’s your best freestyle yet.” Julianne waves to the lens, fingers tracing a heart.
Within breaths, it’s viral. #JulesSpeaks surges, topping wellness trends. Broadway boards light up with POTUS well-wishes; DWTS alums like Bindi Irwin repost: “Warrior through every turn—keep spinning.” Endo communities flood with shares, women tagging #MyEndoStory in solidarity.
In the Hills, where it pulses—the home with its yoga mats and vision boards—the city sighs. At 37, post-third surgery, Julianne Hough isn’t pausing. She’s re-choreographing, one breath at a time. And the world—empowered, empathetic, enduring—will be mirrorside, hands open, for the next lift.
Because some rhythms don’t falter. They just evolve, eternal.
