Marilu Henner reveals ‘hardest things’ about dancing with Derek Hough on ‘DWTS’

Marilu Henner was sure her photographic memory would be a huge asset when competing on season 23 of Dancing With the Stars. But her partner, Derek Hough, had other ideas.

“I have to say that one of the hardest things about Dancing with the Stars,” Henner recently told former DWTS pro Cheryl Burke on her Sex, Lies, and Spray Tans podcast, was Hough’s tendency to constantly alter their choreography.

She explained, “Because Derek wasn’t the kind of partner like I know [Sasha Farber] is, like I know [Mark Ballas] is, and Candice and I — Candice Cameron Bure and I are such good friends… she kept talking about how great it was that she would come in the first day, Mark had everything mapped out, and then she just had to learn it and drill it, over and over again.”

By contrast, “Derek constantly changed things. So I’d do a step, and he’d say, ‘What’s that?’ And I go, ‘That’s the step from Tuesday, the first day we were working on it.’ All of that was in my head. It’s like the only time I thought, ‘Maybe my memory is a little bit of a curse, because if you change things constantly, they’ve gone in there the first way, so I have to take the time to extract them.”

Hough’s spontaneous and unpredictable streak ran so deep that “the routine he taught me, he was changing it on our way to the stage,” Henner recalled.

Bure competed on season 18 of DWTS, taking home the bronze medal with partner Ballas. The tips she gave her Aurora Teagarden Mysteries costar may have actually helped, because Henner and Hough placed sixth on season 23, despite of their differences in approach.

Henner spoke of the experience with fondness and without regret to Burke, but detailed even more difficulties with Hough than just his erratic coaching.

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“So how was your guys’ relationship?” Burke asked, to which Henner replied, “It was fine. I think he was at a crossroads in his life… He had come back, he was this and that,” Henner explained, referencing Hough’s departure after season 21 and return to season 23, which would be his last as a pro.

“I think there was a lot going on,” she continued, “plus, he was doing Hairspray at the time. So there was stuff going on in his life… because then when he went into rehearsals for Hairspray, we had to start at 7 a.m., because he had to go to Hairpray at 9.30, 10… So I was icing my feet and warming up my calves at five o’clock in the morning.”

When Burke pointed out that it’s “interesting how you adapted to his schedule, because normally it’s the other way around,” Henner replied, “That’s the parent in me, the mother of two.”

Henner also noted that “Derek kept saying that my limbs are so long, that if I make a mistake, it’s very obvious,” and that he “hated” the music picked for their “TV night” performance, which was the theme music to Henner’s hit sitcom Taxi. “It was hard for him to be inspired by,” Henner recalled.

Burke even pointed out that she “saw there was tension between you and Derek a little bit” while they filmed, but Henner insisted that that “had much more to do with the way he teaches someone how to dance and someone like me who’s used to a different method” than any inherent clash between their personalities. “He always smelled good!” Henner noted brightly.

Hough’s methods may be unconventional, but he does have the show’s best track record of success, with a whopping six wins across his 17 seasons as a pro. He currently serves as a judge alongside Carrie Ann Inaba and Bruno Tonioli. New episodes of Dancing With the Stars season 33 air Tuesdays at 8 p.m. ET/PT on ABC and Disney+.