Derek Hough and Hayley Erbert Share How She Stays Safe Onstage Since Health Scare: ‘We’re Very Cautious’ (Exclusive)

Mar. 15, 2025

Derek Hough, Hayley Erbert return to the ‘Dancing with the Stars’ ballroom during the Tuesday October 15 live show.Photo:Disney/Eric McCandless

Disney/Eric McCandless

Derek Houghand his wifeHayley Erbert Houghare back on stage — with plenty of precautions in place — following her emergencybrain surgeryin December 2023.

“We’re just very cautious,” Hough, 39, told PEOPLE exclusively. “But I’m very, very, very mindful — almost maybe overly mindful — of things that we do, moves that we do to make sure that she’s protected [so] she’s safe at all times.”

Derek Hough, Hayley Erbert return to the ‘Dancing with the Stars’ ballroom during the Tuesday October 15 live show.Disney/Eric McCandless

Erbert Hough, 30, exclusively told PEOPLE, “For me, it’s all about just listening to my body.”

“I’m very in tune with my body as a dancer and I’m always like, I can tell when something’s off and I’ll be like, ‘Ooh, that doesn’t feel quite right. I shouldn’t be doing this move’ or ‘I shouldn’t be doing this number.’ “

“I feel like I am being smart in that way of just being like, ‘I’m going to listen to myself.’ ”

Hough told PEOPLE that when they go on tour, reminders are physically put in place to keep everyone alert.

“All the dancers in crew, we all have these little badges that say, ‘If there’s any signs of this, this, this, or that, we need to find medical team,’ " he explained. “Just so we’re aware.”

Their return to theDWTSballroom was “extremely special,” Erbert Hough told PEOPLE.

“I was just flooded with emotions,” she says. It was beautiful to be here, to be able to share it with him. And I’m just grateful to be here.”

Before they took the stage, the show aired a montage recapping what Hayley went through last December — where Houghrecounted the moment he learned his wife was “essentially dying"in the middle of their Symphony of Dance tour.

“We rush her to the hospital, she’s still in her costume, and the doctor came to me and he said that, ‘She has a severe brain bleed, so we have to operate right now,’ " Hough said in the clip of heremergency craniectomy, which is surgery to relieve pressure from the pooling blood.

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“He said that she might not make it and that even if she does make it, she won’t be the same person.”

“To be here tonight looking at some of those images,” Hough told PEOPLE afterward, “I was like, in those moments we never even — it was not even a thought like, ‘Oh, we’re going to dance again.’ Honestly. And then to be here, it’s unbelievable. It’s just hard to put it into words.”

source: people.com