2024-10-17 00:45:08
Hayley Erbert is back in the ballroom.
The “So You Think You Can Dance” alum, 30, made a triumphant return to “Dancing with the Stars” on Tuesday to perform a contemporary routine with her husband and “DWTS” judge Derek Hough to an acoustic version of “Beautiful Things” by Benson Boone.
The performance came 10 months after Hough’s social media posts in December that detailed a post-Symphony of Dance tour stop where his wife became disoriented and was taken to the hospital. There, “she was diagnosed with a cranial hematoma from a burst blood vessel and required an emergency craniectomy.”
Derek Hough says wife Hayley Erbert’sskull surgery was successful: ‘Immense relief’
In a pre-dance package Tuesday for “Dedication Night,” Hough opened up about his wife’s road to recovery, saying Season 32 of “DWTS” had just wrapped and they were “doing what we loved with the person that we love” when tragedy struck.
Need a break? Play the USA TODAY Daily Crossword Puzzle.
“It just all came to a screeching halt in the most devastating way,” Hough recalled.
He continued: “I was on stage, and she’s supposed to come out and the stage manager walked out and just said, ‘Hey, she’s not coming on stage.’ She was on the side of the stage having full seizures and, essentially, dying. It’s really hard to even put into words other than just pure fear.”
He continued: “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 recalled how doctors “said she might not make it and that even if she does make it, she won’t be the same person.”
“He told me, ‘you basically have lost the person that you knew,'” Hough said, recalling through tears how he was “begging” on the hospital floor, asking Erbert “please don’t go.”
Hough said his wife was “unrecognizable” the next morning post-surgery and was missing 40% of her skull. However, when she woke up, Hough said Erbert remembered that they were “just dancing” before her hospital stay and he had his wife “back.”
About the Author
