Hayley Erbert Hough has returned to the dance floor!
Hayley Hough’s husband, DWTS judge Derek Hough, talked about the day that everything changed in a video announcing the dancer’s return to the Dancing with the Stars ballroom ahead of the “Dedication” themed episode on October 15, which takes place almost a year after she had an emergency craniectomy.
In the preview, which will also be shown on the show before the couple’s heartfelt ballroom performance, he recalled, “It just came to a screeching halt most devastatingly.”
What happened to Hayley Hough?
She needed an emergency craniectomy after being diagnosed with a cranial hematoma caused by a ruptured blood vessel.
Derek Hough recalls learning that his wife, Hayley Hough, was dying before her DWTS comeback. “I was on stage, and she is supposed to come out,” he said. The stage manager said, “Hey, she is not coming on stage. She was dying while having seizures on the side of the stage. It is quite difficult to express anything besides sheer terror.
“We have to operate on her immediately because she has a severe brain bleed,” the doctor said to me as we hurried her to the hospital while she was still wearing her costume. “He said that even if she succeeds, she will not be the same person and that she might not succeed.”
It is difficult to watch a loved one experience such trauma, Hayley Hough stated in an interview in September 2024. As Erbert Hough has healed, her dancer husband said the two were trying to stay in the moment, staying present.
“That’s so much easier said than done, and it just sounds like such a phrase,” he admitted. “It is something taught me during that time,” and “she assisted me with.”
He said, she was not thinking about the future; she was just in the moment.” “It was just about, ‘What can I do right now that’s going to help them, or even help myself,’ and just staying present.”
Erbert and Hough shared a joint Instagram post on August 26th to commemorate their first wedding anniversary while she was recuperating.
“I married Hayley Erbert one year ago today. The past year has been a journey full of blessings, challenges, struggles, and victories. Throughout, your elegance and beauty have stayed consistent, reminding me of my good fortune.
Now, less than a year following her surgery, Hayley, a former member of the dance troupe, is dancing once again, and she makes her triumphant return to the Dancing with the Stars ballroom following her near-death experience.
