Derek Hough wife Hayley Erbert is a dancer he met on tour, married in August 2023, and nearly lost when she needed emergency brain surgery. The couple welcomed their first child, a daughter named Everley Capri, on 29 December 2025, after an earlier pregnancy loss.
Those four events tend to get blurred together. They happened in a specific order, and the order is most of the story.
Who is Hayley Erbert?
Hayley Erbert, now Hayley Erbert Hough, is a professional dancer who worked alongside Hough on Dancing with the Stars, the ABC competition on which he won a record six times as a professional before becoming a judge. She was 31 in January 2026, according to ABC7.
Hough was born on 17 May 1985, per his Wikipedia entry, which puts the age difference between them at roughly nine years.
How Derek Hough wife Hayley Erbert met him
They met in 2014 during the Move Live on Tour dance tour and began dating in 2015. They married on 26 August 2023 in Monterey County, California, eight years into the relationship. Eight years together before the wedding matters only because of what came next.
The wedding was the calm point before the most frightening stretch of their lives. Within the next two and a half years they would face an emergency brain surgery, lose a pregnancy, and become parents, in that order.
What happened to Hayley Erbert
More than two years before their daughter was born, Hayley Erbert underwent an emergency craniectomy, which ABC7 described as lifesaving brain surgery. She later spoke about the operation publicly in a December Instagram post.
What caused the cranial hematoma behind the surgery is the question most often raised about it. Published coverage reports the operation and her recovery but does not set out a medical cause, and no cause is offered in the reporting. What the record does show is simpler. She recovered, and the couple went on to start a family.
The pregnancy loss, and Everley’s birth
The couple did lose a pregnancy. That loss came before their daughter, not instead of her, which is why the question of whether they “lost their baby” gets two different answers depending on which event someone has heard about.
In July 2025 they announced they were expecting again. Everley Capri Hough was born on 29 December 2025, and the couple announced her arrival in a joint Instagram post. “Every step of our lives has led us to you,” they wrote. “Our hearts have been cracked wide open and our world is forever changed.”
Read against everything before it, that caption is not sentimental decoration. It comes from two people who had been through an emergency brain surgery and a pregnancy loss in the space of about two years.
Common questions
Did Derek and Hayley lose their baby?
They experienced a pregnancy loss, and later welcomed a healthy daughter, Everley Capri, on 29 December 2025. Both are true; the loss came first.
What is the age gap between Derek Hough and his wife?
About nine years. Hough was born on 17 May 1985, and Erbert was 31 in January 2026.
When did Derek Hough wife Hayley Erbert marry him?
On 26 August 2023 in Monterey County, California, after dating since 2015.
Was Derek Hough married before?
No. Hayley Erbert is his first wife. He has not been married before their 2023 wedding.
