Winner of Season 4 – Julianne Hough

Birthday : 7-20-1988

Birthplace : Salt Lake City, Utah (USA)

Birth Name : Julianne Marie Hough

Recent Role : Professional Dancer on Dancing With the Stars

Gender : Female

Julianne Hough is an American professional ballroom dancer and country music singer. She is most widely known for being a two-time winner of ABC’s Dancing with the Stars. She earned a Creative Arts Primetime Emmy nomination in 2007 for choreography. ABC’s 20/20 called her one of the “very best dancers on the planet.” Hough’s brother, Derek, is also on Dancing with the Stars and is a winner himself. Hough was signed to Mercury Nashville Records in December 2007. Her self-titled debut album was released May 20, 2008, debuting at #1 on the Billboard Country Album chart and #3 on the Billboard 200. It sold 67,000 copies its first week, and has sold over 320,000 total copies. On October 12, 2008, she released a holiday album, Sounds of the Season: The Julianne Hough Holiday Collection, which as of January 5, 2009, had sold 157,000 copies.

One of her earliest professional experiences was as an assistant choreographer on Gwen Stefani’s “Wind It Up” music video. She was featured in two television commercials and was an extra in an episode of Cold Case. She was one of the “Million Dollar Dancers” in the short-lived network television game show Show Me the Money.

In the fourth season of the U.S. version of Dancing with the Stars, a televised ballroom dance competition, she won, with her partner Olympic gold medal-winning speed skater Apolo Anton Ohno, making Hough the youngest professional dancer to win on the program. On November 27, 2007, Hough and her partner, three-time Indianapolis 500 champion Hélio Castroneves, became the winners of Season 5. Hough returned for season 6 with radio host/comedian Adam Carolla, but they were eliminated in the fourth week. In July 2008, Hough was nominated at the 60th Primetime Emmy Awards in the category of “Outstanding Choreography” for her Mambo “Para Los Rumberos” (performed with partner Hélio Castroneves) on Dancing with the Stars.

On August 25, 2008, the cast of season 7 was announced, and Hough was partnered with Hannah Montana actor Cody Linley. She felt abdominal pains during their jitterbug performance on October 27, 2008 and was immediately rushed to a hospital following the encore performance. She subsequently had surgery to have her appendix removed, causing her to miss several performances, however, Edyta ?liwi?ska stood in for her. Hough returned to the show, although the pair were ultimately eliminated in the Semifinals Competition. She appeared on the November 12 results show dancing the jive to “Great Balls of Fire” with her brother for the “Design-A-Dance” contest. Hough and brother Derek were selected the favorite pros on the show by an online vote at ABC.com and won the honor of doing this special audience designed dance.

On November 20, 2008, Hough told Ryan Seacrest on his radio show she would not be returning for the foreseeable future to Dancing with the Stars in order to further her country music career. However, she did return for the eighth season, partnering with real life boyfriend, country singer Chuck Wicks. They were voted off in the eighth week of the competition and came in 6th place.