Derek Hough Marks 41st Birthday With Six Mirrorball Wins
derek hough is celebrating his 41st birthday, and the number that keeps defining his run on Dancing With the Stars is still six. He joined the show as a pro in its fifth season at 22 and built a résumé that now stretches across nearly 20 years of television.
His competitive record gives the birthday spotlight real weight: Hough competed in 17 seasons and never finished below sixth place with a partner. That kind of consistency is rare in a format built on weekly elimination, and it is why his name remains tied to the franchise’s standard for success.
Six wins, one record
Six Mirrorball trophies separate Hough from every other dancer in the show’s history. He won with Brooke Burke in Season 7, Nicole Scherzinger in Season 10, Jennifer Gray in Season 11, Kellie Pickler in Season 16, Amber Riley in Season 17 and Bindi Irwin in Season 21.
Mark Ballas and Val Chmerkovskiy each have three Mirrorball wins, which puts Hough’s total in a category of its own. He also reached second place with Shawn Johnson and Amy Purdy, third with Ricki Lake, and fourth with Jennie Garth, Joanna Krupa, Maria Menounos, Bethany Moda and Nastia Liukin.
From pro to head judge
After Season 23, Hough retired as a pro dancer and returned in 2020 for the show’s 29th season as a judge. He initially filled Len Goodman’s seat because the head judge could not travel from England to Los Angeles during COVID-19 restrictions, then sat alongside Goodman, Carrie Anne Inaba and Bruno Tonioli for the next two seasons.
That shift turned Hough from competitor to evaluator, and it gave the show a rare internal line of succession. After Season 31, Goodman retired, died of bone cancer in April 2023, and Hough was named the new head judge.
Hayley Erbert and DWTS
Hough’s birthday also lands inside a DWTS family story that reaches beyond his own record. He met Hayley Erbert during the Move Live tour in 2014, she joined the ABC show as a troupe dancer in 2015, and she stayed in that role for six seasons.
They got engaged in 2022 and married in August 2023. In December, Erbert suffered a near-fatal cranial hematoma, required emergency surgery and later underwent a second procedure for a skull implant, a sharp reminder that the off-camera year has carried as much weight as the on-camera milestones.
The clean read on Hough’s place in the show is simple: six wins, a record unmatched by Ballas or Chmerkovskiy, and a rare transition from top competitor to head judge. On his 41st birthday, that is the number that matters most.
