Hayley Erbert Hough is opening up about life since her medical scare.
Speaking to Entertainment Tonight, the dancer, 30, spoke about caring for her health following her emergency surgery in December 2023.
“I just listen to my body,” Hayley said alongside her husband Derek Hough ahead of their holiday tour, Derek Hough: Dance for the Holidays. “Being a dancer, I feel like I’m really in tune with my body.”
She added, “I do have a medical team still around.”
Hayley’s emergency surgery came after she was hospitalized for a cranial hematoma, which is characterized by blood collecting in the skull. She underwent an emergency craniectomy.
Speaking about his concerns when it comes to his wife dancing, Derek, 39, told ET, “I’m the one who I’m like, ‘What, what?’ ”
“It’s true, he’s the one with the nerves,” Hayley added, to which her husband continued, “‘We don’t need to do that.’ ”
“And she’s like, ‘Babe, I can do that.’ But she puts my mind at ease,” Derek told the outlet.
The couple were in the middle of their Symphony of Dance tour in Washington, D.C., when Hayley was rushed to hospital for a brain bleed.
Earlier this month, Derek recalled how his wife was still in her dance costume when she was hospitalized as Hayley made her return to the Dancing with the Stars ballroom with an emotional performance with Derek on the Tuesday, Oct. 15 live show.
“It just all came to a screeching halt in the most devastating way,” Derek recalled of the moment in a video package on the ABC show. “I was on stage, and she’s supposed to come out. 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.”
“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,'” the DWTS judge continued. “He said that she might not make it and that even if she does make it, she won’t be the same person.”
The duo are set to open up more about their story in an upcoming documentary, set to be released in 2025.
“Jason Bergh, he’s an award winning filmmaker,” Derek told ET. “He came into the studio, just kept filming, kept coming with us to hospital visits, came out on the road with us and really captured the entire journey ‘cause it’s really powerful, it’s really beautiful and it’s amazing.”