Derek Hough Gets Emotional Over Wife Hayley’s Strength After Brain Bleed (Exclusive)

“Extra” host Derek Hough and wife Hayley are opening up about their new documentary “The Symphony of Dance,” which centers on her medical emergency and road to recovery after undergoing a craniectomy.

In December 2023, Haley suffered a cranial hematoma at the end of a tour performance in Washington, D.C.

Hayley recalled, “From my recollection, we were dancing onstage and at the very beginning of the show, we hit heads and it was nothing out of the ordinary. We hit heads, there’s elbows flying. Like, it’s dance. We always have little minor incidents, so we didn’t think anything of it. We were like, ‘Okay, we hit heads. Let’s keep going.’

“And by about almost the end of the show was when I just started getting this excruciating headache. And I remember doing a few extra numbers and being like, ‘Okay, I’ll push through. I’m good. I’m good.’ And then I don’t remember anything after that. I blacked out and I collapsed on the side of the stage, and he would remember all the rest.”

Derek chimed in, “I remember seeing her wincing... So, I thought she hurt her neck because that’s kind of like a neck pain look on your face, you know what I mean? That you recognize. And so I’m protecting her neck as we’re dancing. By the way, she doesn’t remember three of the routines that she danced, and she didn’t miss a step.”

He went on, “Didn’t miss a step, but she has no recollection of doing those routines and dancing at all. But she was basically on the side of the stage. I am in that moment doing a tribute to Len Goodman and I’m talking about how life is fleeting; how precious life is. And little did I know that she is on the side of the stage dying, essentially. There was a moment where I’m looking at the EMTs, they’re looking like it’s not good.”

Hough continued, “And something that we actually haven’t really spoken about is afterward when everything had happened, I saw the owner of the hospital and he came up to me. He said, ‘Derek, I just want to tell you something now that everything’s okay. I know that you guys had a choice to make, in that moment.’

“There was a hospital 10 minutes away from the venue and then the hospital we went to was 45 minutes away and the EMT said, ‘We can get her to a hospital in 10 minutes,’ and they said, ‘Let’s do that,’ but the other hospital’s better. They have more facilities just in case it’s something more serious and so we were like, ‘Well, let’s roll the dice and let’s go to the further hospital.’

“And he just told me, he said, ‘If you would have went to the one closer, she wouldn’t be here.’ Because it was such a timely issue that they needed to operate immediately when they found out that she had a brain bleed because it had been exacerbated because we were dancing as well.”

Hayley explained, “So, my blood was pumping through my veins way quicker than usual.”

Derek emphasized, “We really truly almost lost her.”

Hayley looked back at what happened, saying, “It’s funny because I was going through an extremely personal situation, very publicly.”

As for how the documentary came about, Hayley shared, “I actually remember when our director, Jason Berg, approached Derek first and was like, ‘I’d love to document her getting back into dancing.’ And Derek came home and he was like, ‘Would you like to do this?’ And I first said, ‘No.’ I was like, ‘No, I don’t want to.’ It felt really vulnerable because it is. It’s an extremely vulnerable thing to do. And I always say that... I’m a private person living a public life. And I was just like, I don’t think I want to do that. So, I said no at first.

“And then once I kind of came around to it, I was like, you know what? If I can help just one person by sharing my story, then let’s do it. Let’s do it. And I was like, ‘Jason, I’m putting my full trust in you.’ And he did it so beautifully.”

Hayley added, “We’ve watched it a few times. We’ve gone into the editing bay and we’ve kind of just like watched all the different moments and it’s really beautiful. But honestly, for us, there’s a lot of PTSD watching it back. We’re like, ‘Okay, it really like hits us over and over again.’”

Derek ran into Jason shortly after Hayley’s incident, saying, “He came up to me and he just had tears in his eyes. He has the biggest heart in the world... And he was like, ‘I’m just thinking about you guys. I just love you so much and everything, okay?’ And I said, ‘Yeah, we’re actually going to be going to the dance studio next week.’ And he was like, ‘Are you what? Are you kidding?’ He goes, ‘Can I come bring the camera and just start filming a little bit of it?’ And I was like, ‘Yeah, come on.’

“So we really weren’t even planning on doing anything with it. He just wanted to come capture the first rehearsal and then it just turned into, ‘Can I come to the next one? Can I come to the next one? Can maybe I can come film the first show when you guys are back onstage?’… It became just like this thing where he said, ‘Can I... just keep documenting this?’ And then it eventually turned into something very organically. It wasn’t really like a super planned thing.”

Hayley was “really comfortable” with Jason seeing “such a personal moment in our lives.”

Derek also dished on some of the vulnerable personal moments, saying, “Well, I think a lot some of the clips you’re going to see are actually in the hospital. The recovery, you know, time, we haven’t shared a lot of that…

“And again, in the studio, you know, dancing for the first time, some of the frustrations and some of the challenges, you know, that it took to get back out there, and also some just sort of like backstory as well, you know, for those who might not know Haley’s story and backstory.”

Derek described the documentary as “a love story."

Hayley elaborated, “There’s a lot of emotional moments, too, of me not feeling like I could actually get back out onstage or not knowing. I was really uncertain of where I was going to be. I had such a massive operation on my head. I was like, ‘I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to dance again.’ So getting back into that studio was terrifying and it was a really emotional time for both of us.”

Derek got emotional about Hayley, who handled everything with such grace.

Derek teared up, saying, “What actually also gets me really emotional as well about this documentary more than anything else is the fact that our daughter gets to see it one day. She gets to see just what a badass her mom is, you know? She gets to see her just overcome things and to get back out on the floor after something like this, and what a cool thing to be able to share with our kid, you know?”  

Hayley pointed out with a smile, “She also gets to see us finding out about her.”

Derek agreed, saying, “That’s true. There’s also that as well at the end of it. Where this chapter of the film finishes is the beginning of this new chapter.”

Their new chapter includes them back on the dance floor together on tour this summer.

Hayley dished, “We’re going back out on tour. It’s called "Symphony of Dance: Encore." It’s actually essentially a very similar show to what we did when the incident happened and we’re of course changing it and making it... bigger and better for sure.

“But it’s such a special show to us both because it was where it all happened. It was kind of my comeback tour and now it’s like a new chapter of our lives. We have our beautiful daughter who’s going to be coming out with us. It’s going to be an amazing time. The family of three on the road.”