Being bullied, whether physically or psychologically or both, is a truly miserable experience. It leaves scars that never completely heal. Just ask Derek Hough. The Dancing with the Stars longtime regular has opened up about the torment he endured as a boy. It was brutal beyond belief, according to him. Learning to dance was Hough's salvation. Nevertheless, the abysmal cruelty he was subjected to still lingers. He courageously spoke about it when he was a guest recently on The Bossticks.
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Hough Was Kind of an Outsider in School, Which Made Him Vulnerable
Today he admits that he wasn't part of the in-crowd. Maybe that was because he says he was "awkward" and "scrawny" as a boy. Hough shared with the Bossticks, "...[A]s a young kid, I really found it hard to connect with kids at school and to hang out. And I didn't have the little cliques, and so I was always on the outside just trying to fit in."
He was not just ostracized. Hough says that he was sometimes pummeled by other students. "At one school a kid punched me in the face. I was bleeding everywhere. But then I retaliated and started beating him up, and then I got expelled from school."
Furthermore, Hough, 41, added, "One time, this girl kind of liked me when we were kids. We're talking like 10 years old, 11 years old. And a few of the guys didn't like that, so they found me in a corner, and they beat me up."
Even the Neighbors Were Mean to Him
Derek Hough also told the Bossticks about his neighbors. They were painfully, hideously terrible to him as well. "Even my neighborhood, where I lived in my neighborhood, we had these neighbors who were — bullying is kind of a too nice of a word. They like tormented me where they would like hang me up in a tree by my ankles and put a gun to my head and spit on me or hog-tie me in a field. And it was, I was scared. I would have night terrors."
Dancing Gave Him an Outlet and Brought Him Joy
For Hough, a Utah native, dancing meant hope and happiness. When he was 12 years old, he went to London, per Fox News Digital. There, he studied with Shirley and Corky Ballas. They are parents of DWTS' Mark Ballas. Suddenly, his world opened way up. Hough now had momentum, security, and a new sense of self.
He said, "Once I was there, I felt like, on track, you know? And I felt safe. I actually felt safe being away, and I felt like I had a goal...I knew what I was doing." And he was not hapless or helpless anymore, either. Hough went on, "Each day I was like, 'This is the plan.' You know, there was not this sense of floating around and being scared. It was like I had clarity and that clarity is power."
Hough Posted About Bullying and Cyberbullying in October
Clearly, the topic of bullying has been weighing on Derek Hough's mind lately. With the stature he has from DWTS and his massive fan base, what he says makes an impact. Hough wrote an Instagram post captioned, "Power over others is weakness in disguise."
He noted that we can't always eradicate "negativity." But we can counter it with something more positive and compassionate and empathetic. We can choose to emphasize those things. And to put that in a larger context, we can also decide what kind of society we want to create. It's really up to all of us.
As Derek Hough put it, "...[W]e can all be a little more mindful of the voices we choose to amplify," especially online.
