Ex-NHL Player Brooks Laich Says Wife Julianne Hough Helped Him 'Explore' His Sexuality

Former professional hockey player Brooks Liach is thanking his wife dancer and actor Julianne Hough for helping him "explore" his sexuality, E! News reports.

Liach's comments come during an interview with the "How Men Think" podcast, in which he opened up about his sexuality and connecting with Hough, who he married in 2017.

"Nothing dirty can exist between two people in love," he said. "I've shared this on this show many times, a big part of my journey in 2020 is exploring my sexuality.

"And by that I don't mean if I'm gay or straight," the athlete went on to say. "I mean, like, in my sexual relationship. What is my sexuality? What am I craving, what are my desires and what are my wife's?

"And how could we have this language to feed each other and get everything we want and be sexually expressed to the nth degree in everything," Liach, 36, added.

He went on to say that it was Hough who helped him start his journey of getting in touch with his sexuality.

"When you say sexuality, culture or society thinks it's gay or straight. Some people are figuring that out, that's fine, but my journey is discovering and learning and figuring out my capacity for sexual feelings, which in my life have been very low on the priority list," he told the podcast, according to E! News. "And now, I've discovered this and... through doing this show and also through my wife, who's exploring this as well, and shared a lot of this with me and has perked my interest in it.

"I've been exposed to a beautiful new side of life that I never, ever explored or thought to explore before and it's amazing," Liach continued.

Nevertheless, though he's exploring his sexuality, he admitted that he wouldn't be able to have a threesome.

"When you're younger, like as a teenage guy or an early 20s guy that's all that's on your brain," he said. "As a young dude, you're just thinking of exploring and that would sound amazing. And then once you grow and you get some emotional capacity and emotional intelligence, and in this stage in my life, I'm looking for a deeper connection and romance. Not a threesome."

Liach said that he's "looking for love and connection."

Hough, too, has made headlines for opening up about her sexuality. In an interview with Women's Health magazine last year, the "America's Got Talent" judge said she's "not straight." She explained that soon after her marriage to the athlete, she began undergoing a "massive transformation."

"I was connecting to the woman inside that doesn't need anything, versus the little girl that looked to him to protect me," Hough told Women's Health. "I was like, 'Is he going to love this version of me?' I [told him], 'You know I'm not straight, right?' And he was like, 'I'm sorry, what?' I was like, 'I'm not. But I choose to be with you.'

"I think there's a safety with my husband now that I'm unpacking all of this, and there's no fear of voicing things that I've been afraid to admit or that I've had shame or guilt about because of what I've been told or how I was raised," she added.

Click here to listen to the "How Men Think" podcast. And click here to check out Hough's full profile with Women's Health.