Derek Hough says Shawn Johnson still sits near the top of his Dancing With the Stars regrets. He called the 2012 All-Star season one of the two runs he thinks he could have won, even though he and Johnson finished second.
Shawn Johnson and Derek Hough
Hough told TV Insider, “Shawn Johnson … that was crazy,” and added, “That was one of my favorite seasons.” He said of their week-to-week work, “That was pretty damn good.” For a dancer who later became a judge, that kind of retrospective is rare because it turns a finished result into a rewatch of missed opportunity.
Johnson had already won Season 8 with Mark Ballas before the All-Star season brought her back with Hough. The new pairing ended behind Melissa Rycroft and Tony Dovolani, which is why Hough’s memory of the season reads like a near-win rather than a victory lap.
Back Flips on DWTS
Hough said the pair were “doing back flips and crazy tricks and things like that that had never been done on the show before.” He also recalled one stunt that went sideways: “She was standing on my shoulders and we tipped [over]. What the hell was I thinking?” Those details explain why the season still sticks with him. It was not just a second-place finish; it was a run built on risk, speed, and routines that pushed past the usual ballroom template.
The result also fits a broader pattern in Hough’s career. He is a six-time Mirrorball champion, but he said there were two times he felt he could have won and finished second instead. Shawn Johnson was one of them, and that places the All-Star season in a narrow category: the losses he still measures against the wins.
Hough Still On DWTS
Hough later added another near-miss from Season 18, when he and Amy Purdy finished behind Meryl Davis and Maksim Chmerkovskiy. That season stood out for a different reason, but the Johnson pairing remains the one he singled out with the sharpest language, which tells you where the emotional residue still is.
He has since returned to Dancing With the Stars as a judge, a role he has held since Season 29 in 2020. So the season that left him asking what he was thinking is now part of the perspective he brings to the show from the judging table, and that is the real business takeaway here: the former pro is now evaluating the kind of risk that once nearly delivered another Mirrorball.
