Julianne Hough

London Calling

Hough's parents divorce when she's 10, and she and Derek move to London to train with the parents of future Dancing with the Stars pro Mark Ballas. He becomes Hough's dance partner and boyfriend. "She was my first love," Ballas says. While attending the renowned theater arts school Italia Conti, the trio forms a pop group called 2B1G (short for two boys, one girl). "We had the corniest songs," Hough later recalls to PEOPLE. "We had a song called 'L-O-V-E Y-O-U,' and we spelled it out with our hands." After five years in London (where she becomes a two-time Latin dance world champion), Hough returns to America.

November 27

Racing with Helio

For the fifth season of DWTS, Hough is paired with Indy 500 champ Helio Castroneves, who beats Spice Girl Mel B. and Marie Osmond for the title. Their win is paired with headlines of a romance after Castroneves splits from his fianceé a few months after Hough breaks her own engagement to Zach Wilson. "They said I was a homewrecker," Hough tells PEOPLE. "But I'm pretty much the only one on the show who hasn't hooked up." As for her own relationship, she says, "If I had stayed in Utah, that could have worked. But I'm in a different place in my life now."

May

Joining Country's Blondes

After dropping her country music debut, "That Song in My Head," Hough's self-titled debut album sells more than 67,000 copies in its first week, the best initial showing for a country debut since Kellie Pickler's in 2006. Of her multi-hyphenated career, the newly minted country blonde (pictured with Taylor Swift and Pickler) tells the AP, "I wouldn't take [DWTS] back, even though it might have slowed my singing down a little. I feel that now that I've mastered dancing I can pursue singing."