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“Dancing with the Stars” pro Derek Hough has a lot to celebrate.
The professional ballroom dancer, 37, spoke with Fox News Digital about his recent engagement to Hayley Erbert, admitting he was “hounded for years” before getting down on one knee.
“I’ve been hounded for years, not by my fiancée, but by fans and people around saying, ‘When are you going to do this? Come on, man, step up.’ So it’s official, and I’m so happy,” he shared.
Derek Hough spoke with Fox News Digital about his recent engagement to Hayley Erbert, admitting he was “hounded for years” before getting down on one knee.
(Michael Kovac/Getty Images for the Critics Choice Real TV Awards)
The couple began dating in 2015 after meeting on “Dancing with the Stars,” and Hough planned an engagement that surprised Erbert, which he claimed was “impossible” to do.
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“The whole day we were on this like helicopter trip with my buddy, and I knew I had to get her out of the house for 8 hours,” Hough began. “We went to one of our special places, which was Yosemite, which is a special place for Hailey and I, and we were flying over it, which is very unique.”
He shared that the couple hugged and cried for 20 minutes before saying a word to each other.
Hough and Erbert are soaking in the engagement bliss, but Hough shared they do not want this to be a “super long engagement.”
“We’re already looking at ideas, venues. We want to sort of get ahead of it because we know it’s a whole process, but we’re excited about it,” he said. “I want to make it a really special occasion and one thing I will say is that we have some pretty cool friends that are good musicians and artists and performers. So, it’s going to be a very entertaining wedding, we’ll say that.”
When it comes to the couple’s first dance, Hough shared that the duo will be “taking the night off” and not putting on a lavish performance. “We’re like, ‘Hey we’ll do a little something, but we’re taking the night off. You all are performing for us.’”
Erbert and Hough first met in 2015 on “Dancing with the Stars.”
(Photo by Steve Granitz/FilmMagic)
Hough has been performing his show in Las Vegas, “No Limit: Derek Hough” since May. The shows are performed exclusively at the Venetian Hotel and will run through September.
“The audiences are just the energy is incredible,” he said of his Vegas shows. “There’s grandmas in the audiences, there’s kids in the audiences, there’s mom and dad’s, there’s such a wide range of people, and they all find something that they love and enjoy, and I take a lot of pride in that.”
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Hough said that it’s “really special” for him whenever anyone speaks highly of his show or loves his performance.
The Emmy award-winner shared his next project, which was recently greenlighted by National Geographic and will feature Hough traveling across the world and learning the native dances of each place.
“I’ll be traveling around the world, going to different locations, to the origins of where certain dances came from and learning the history, understanding the origin, where it is now and taking a celebrity with me and having an amazing performance at the end of the episode,” he shared.
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Although Hough has a wedding to plan and will be traveling the world, he will be returning to “Dancing with the Stars” once they move over to Disney Plus.
“I’m very excited about it because, one, I feel like that’s where a lot of things are going anyways,” he said, speaking of the streaming service. “You know, in five years, ten years’ time streaming is a big player, you know, and entertainment. What I’m excited about, too, is that it’s a first. It’s never been done where a competition reality show has been on a streaming service.”
Hough is currently performing his “No Limit: Derek Hough” show in Vegas through September.
(Kelsey McNeal/ABC via Getty Images )
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“Dancing with the Stars” has been featured on ABC for 30 seasons prior to the move to a streaming service. “This is like a good time to be like, ‘Okay, a rebrand, a reinvention, reinventing,’ you know, but still, of course, with the heart of the show,” Hough said.
Fox News’ Larry Fink contributed to this report.
