Julianne Hough is putting any grievances with her brother Derek aside following a family medical emergency.
Last December, Derek’s wife, Hayley Erbert, 29, underwent emergency surgery for a cranial hematoma, and Julianne, 36, says the ordeal has altered her relationship with Derek, 39.
“Something happens and it just is like a clean slate,” the “DWTS” alum told People magazine. “Especially with what just happened with Derek and Haley, there could have been little things just kind of looming or lingering in the background, but when you’re left with life-or-death situations, nothing else matters.”
“Whatever little things of competition there are or whatever it might be, those things just go away,” she added.
Erbert, who married Derek in August 2023 after eight years of dating, was hospitalized in December after she “became disoriented” at the end of a show she was performing with her husband.
The “So You Think You Can Dance” alum was diagnosed “with a cranial hematoma from a burst blood vessel” and immediately underwent emergency brain surgery.
According to the Mayo Clinic, an intracranial hematoma is a collection of blood within the brain tissue or underneath the skull, which then presses on the brain.
She underwent a second surgery to “insert a skull implant” that would “restore the skull to its natural shape and protect the brain from injury.”
Derek called his wife’s “recovery process…nothing short of a miracle.”
Julianne also admitted that she’s had ups and downs with her family.
“I am so blessed to have the family that I have, even when we’re not all on the same page, when we don’t sometimes have the same beliefs or understandings of things,” the “Footloose” alum shared.
“The thing that hurts the most is when we’re not connected,” she added.
“And so sometimes you do the thing that hurts the most, which is remove yourself because you’re trying to protect yourself. So our family is like any other family. We have our situations and our s–t. but our deepest desire is to connect. And I think we all really have a strong desire to make that happen.”
Julianne has also been supportive of her sister Catherine, who lost a partner to glioblastoma two years ago, and shared that tough times do put things into perspective.
“When something tragic happens or something really hard or something where somebody needs you … It makes you realize that as humans, as people on this planet, we really do care so much,” the dancing phenom explained.
“Just in general in life, when things happen, people want to come together,” she concluded. “And I think that we’re so inundated with people fighting against each other that we have to remember that I think the goodness in humanity is that we do want to show up for each other.”
