Julianne Hough opens up to Cosmopolitan about child abuse

It may seem the perky and beautiful dancer Julianne Hough has the perfect life, but for over a decade she has been carrying around a dark and painful secret. The dancer turned actress sat down with Cosmopolitan magazine lately and opened up about her own experiences with abuse as a child dancing in London. Hough moved to London from Utah at the tender age of ten to learn dance and that is where the abuse began.

“I was 10 years old looking like I was 28, being a very sensual dancer. I was a tormented little kid who had to put on this sexy façade because that was my job and my life,” she told the magazine. She went on to say that “While I was in London, I was abused, mentally, physically, everything.”

Hough has refused to name her abuser, explaining, “I’m a very forgiving person, and I don’t want to hurt anybody. What’s past is past.”