Early Life
Hough was born and raised in Sandy, Utah, a suburb of Salt Lake City, the youngest of five children in a Latter-day Saint (Mormon) family. Her parents are Mari Ann (née Heaton) and Bruce Robert Hough, who was twice chairman of the Utah Republican Party. Her brother, Derek Hough, is also a professional dancer. She also has three older sisters, Sharee, Marabeth, and Katherine. All four of Hough's grandparents were dancers, and her parents met while on a ballroom dancing team in college, in Idaho.
Her formal training began at the Center Stage Performing Arts Studio in Orem, Utah, where she danced with Josh Murillo, among others, in Latin Ballroom; she began dancing competitively at nine. In 1999, when she was 10, her divorcing parents sent her and brother Derek to London to live and study with their coaches, Corky and Shirley Ballas. The Ballases helped tutor the two Hough children alongside their own son, Mark. Following in Derek's footsteps, she joined him at the Italia Conti Academy when a slot opened up at that school. They received training in song, theatre, gymnastics and many forms of dance, including jazz, ballet, and tap. The three children formed their own pop music trio 2B1G ("2 Boys, 1 Girl") when Hough was 12, performed at dance competitions in the UK and the U.S., and showcased in a UK television show. At 15, Julianne Hough became the youngest dancer, and only American, to win both Junior World Latin Champion and International Latin Youth Champion at the Blackpool Dance Festival. She left London that year, after having been "abused, mentally, physically, everything," she said, a situation that escalated "when I started hitting puberty, when I started becoming a woman and stopped being a little girl. ... I was told if I ever went back to the United States, three things were going to happen. One: I was going to amount to nothing. Two: I was going to work at Whataburger. And three: I was going to end up a slut. So, it was like, I can't go back. I have to be this person." After returning to the U.S. she attended the Las Vegas Academy before finishing high school in Utah.
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