Julianne Hough Has No Regrets About Not ‘Dancing’ This Season

'Dancing With the Stars' will be missing one familiar face when the show's ninth season kicks off Tuesday night. Julianne Hough, after appearing on the show for five seasons, and winning the coveted mirror-ball trophy twice, is sitting this season out to focus on her music career. But fans of the songstress might still catch a glimpse of her on the show.

"I'm not closing any doors or anything," Julianne tells Toledo radio station KISS FM. "I definitely want to come back at some point, whether it's to do the results show where they have the artist come on and then dance. I'm sure I'll do something this season."

Julianne had talked about taking a break from the hit show last year, before agreeing to one more season, during which she danced with real-life boyfriend Chuck Wicks. And in spite of the heavy demands of the show, the multi-talented Julianne has no regrets. "We definitely knew it was going to be a tough thing, so we both went in there, thinking 'Alright, let's just go in there, being professional.' Luckily, he's cool. He let me be dominant. It didn't hurt his male ego. And for me, I guess I kind of took a little bit of a step back from how I usually teach. Usually I'm a little bit more tough. But ... relationships are a little bit more important."

Taking time off from the show was hardly an easy decision for Julianne, but not because of undue pressure from the TV networks. "ABC, BBC, everybody, they've been so great. When I first went on the show, my first season, I said, 'I wanna do this show, but my real passion is music, and I don't want to be on 'Dancing With the Stars' my whole life.' And they all knew that, and so this was the right time."

Julianne adds that she wants her sophomore album to better represent herself as an artist, offering some candid reflections on her debut album, which was released last year.

"I just felt like my first one, which was great for the time that we had, it wasn't true to who I was," she admits. "It was very lighthearted and just kind of thrown together. So this time around, I really want to focus on my music. This is where my heart is, and this is where I want my career to take me for the next 40, 50 years. They've been really great. It was definitely something we had to talk about for quite a while, but it was wonderful. They are wonderful people."

In addition to working on the new album, next year Julianne begins shooting her first major film role, starring opposite Chace Crawford in the remake of the iconic '80s dance flick, 'Footloose.'