The Oct. 15 episode of “Dancing With the Stars” was “Dedication Night,” which meant the tears were already flowing… and then Derek Hough and wife Hayley Erbert took the floor.
The married duo celebrated her return to the ballroom with an emotional routine to “Beautiful Things” by Benson Boone, marking Erbert’s first time back following her emergency craniectomy.
Ahead of the routine, the “DWTS” judge explained that just three months after the two got married in August 2023, while the pair were on their joint Symphony of Dance tour, their lives “came to a screeching halt in the most devastating way.”
“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,” the longtime pro-turned-judge said in a video package that aired Tuesday night.
Erbert was rushed into the hospital for an emergency cranial hematoma.
“The doctor came to me and he said that ‘She has a severe brain bleed, so we have to operate right now,’” Hough said, choking back tears. “He said that she might not make it and that even if she does make it, she won’t be the same person. They told me, you basically lost the person that you knew… I just remember laying on the hospital floor just begging. I was like, please don’t go.”
He said she was “unrecognizable” the next morning and was missing 40% of her skull. However, she remembered that the pair were dancing before she landed in the hospital, and he felt so relieved he had his wife back.
After the pair performed during the latest “DWTS” episode, Hough shared that the pair were actually able to dance on stage in front of doctors and nurses in Washington, D.C. following her recovery.
“Afterward, the doctors came up to us and said, ‘Hey Derek, this is a miracle.’ And I said, ‘Yeah it is.’ He said, ‘No Derek, this is a miracle,’” Hough shared on Tuesday night. “He really felt the weight of just how remarkable this woman is and her determination and her spirit. You inspire me so much. She’s incredible.”
