JULIANNE Hough has straddled her co-host Alfonso Ribeiro giving him a huge bear hug in a backstage video she has shared to Instagram.
The Dancing with the Stars host shared a reel of herself hugging several of her co-workers and jumping up on several of them to hold her full body weight.
In the wholesome clip, Julianne, 35, made a compilation of herself and talked about her “love language.”
One of her co-workers in the compilation is her co-host, Alfonso, 52.
Julianne is wearing tiny dance shorts as she jumped off of a stage and into Alfonso’s arms.
Smiling, he twirled her around before setting her safely down on the ground.
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Text over her video read: “Tell me your love language is physical touch without telling me your love language is physical touch.”
Julianne captioned her post: “Embracing my love language one hug at a time.
“I’ve been so intentional with what I do in my life and who I surround myself with that I can’t help but want to squeeze my friends tight when I get to see them.”
‘CRINGE!’
Despite Julianne’s positivity, fans have not given her the most enthusiastic feedback as she takes over as host of the competition show.
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The comments came after the Halloween episode of Dancing With The Stars that aired on Tuesday evening.
One fan wrote on X, formerly known as Twitter: “Derek and Julianne gotta go.
“If you ain’t dancing, you ain’t doing it.”
The same X user continued to rant: “Julianne is cringe-y as h**l on the mic and Derek is delusional and weird on this Harry and Rylee show-mance train.”
In previous episodes, Julianne has talked to dancers Harry Jowsey and Rylee Arnold about their rumored romance outside the ballroom.
On October 17, Julianne called them “lovebirds” during an interview.
“She’s shipping them HARD,” one X user remarked.
Another fan posted: “I’m not even mad at Rylee and Harry for playing into their flirting/possible relationship because it’s bringing in the views and votes but the fact that others like Derek and Julianne are playing along with it too not only shocks me but makes me LOL.”
‘GREAT JOB’
Despite the negative feedback, her co-star and dancer Maks Chmerkovskiy defended Julianne and said she’s doing a “great job.”
In an exclusive conversation with The U.S. Sun, he said: “Are there other professionals who do hosting professionally better than Julianne? Yeah, probably.
“There’s also probably dancers that are better dancers than most of the staff on Dancing With the Stars too.
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“The problem here is that we can criticize everyone all the time. The reality, though, is that when pieces fit in a project, such as Dancing With the Stars, that’s what you are mostly looking for is that – that all the pieces would fit and the show would become what it is.”
He explained “the pieces” are all the dancers, celebrities, hosts and judges that are part of this “big project” – “a stage production.”