Julianne Hough’s BF Riawna Capri Says She and Brooks Laich ‘Are Good’: ‘They Love Each Other’
Despite murmurs of marital trouble, everything is “good” between Julianne Hough and husband Brooks Laich, her best friend Riawna Capri tells PEOPLE.
The in-demand celebrity hairstylist, 38, walked the red carpet at the 2020 Hollywood Beauty Awards in Los Angeles on Thursday, where she spoke out about Hough and Laich’s relationship.
“Everything’s good. They’re, they’re good,” Capri said. “They’re both good together. They’re just, you know, they love each other, so it’s a good thing.”
Capri went on to gush about her bond with Hough, dishing about what their life is like when they’re not working together.
“[We] laughing our asses off at anything and everything, literally,” she says, adding the two are also always “hanging out with our animals” and brainstorming projects. “We’re actually really good at creating new ideas. I help her with ideas and she helps me with ideas in both of our businesses, and it’s so much fun.”
The two are also always in touch, Capri says. “We’re always sending each other pictures on Instagram back and forth of, ‘Ooh, what about this hair? Oh my god, look at this. This is hilarious. Oh my god, this is awful. This is amazing,’ ” she reveals. “We have really good Instagram DM exchange.”
RELATED: Julianne Hough’s Husband Brooks Laich Says He’s ‘Re-assessing Many Things in My Life’
Sources previously told PEOPLE that Hough had hit a rough patch with her husband, having “problems for months.”
“She’s very independent and a free spirit, and that’s been tough for Brooks and their marriage,” the source said of Hough, who revealed last summer that she’s not straight.
The two announced their engagement in August 2015 after dating for a year and a half and have been married since 2017.
Fans started wondering about a split at the end of December, noticing that Hough was not wearing her ring while co-hosting NBC’s New Years Eve show. She also posted a video of herself ringless on Christmas Eve.
Hough’s wedding ring was also noticeably missing when she stepped out with Laich to grab lunch in Studio City, California, earlier this month.
Neither Hough nor Laich have publicly addressed any marital trouble, and their reps have not commented.
An insider told PEOPLE that the two “are not giving up, but also not talking about [their issues publicly].”
“They want to do this their way,” the insider said. “They don’t want to discuss their marriage. They have been having problems, but many people do.”
RELATED: Julianne Hough Posts Cryptic Quote About Growing Apart from People You Love
While they’ve stayed quiet on their marriage, both have spoken out about relationships in general — including a cryptic message Hough, 31, shared on Instagram in January.
“To love someone long-term is to attend a thousand funerals of the people they used to be,” the quote by psychology writer Heidi Priebe read. “The people they’re too exhausted to be any longer. The people they don’t recognize inside themselves anymore. The people they grew out of, the people they never ended up growing into. We so badly want the people we love to get their spark back when it burns out; to become speedily found when they are lost.”
“But it is not our job to hold anyone accountable to the people they used to be,” the quote continued. “It is our job to travel with them between each version and to honor what emerges along the way. Sometimes it will be an even more luminescent flame. Sometimes it will be a flicker that disappears and temporarily floods the room with a perfect and necessary darkness.”
On this week’s episode of his iHeartRadio podcast How Men Think, Laich, 36, got into a lengthy conversation about the reasons people choose to divorce, stressing that couples “need to continually evolve.”
“You’re going to change, I’m going to change in the course of my life, my wife is going to change in the course of her life,” the hockey player said. “But also, I think people over time can develop some sort of indifference where once there was an attraction. They can just develop an indifference, and it’s not staying connected enough to continue to learn and grow and accept your changes, accept their changes, and also challenge each other.”
“There are so many resources out there — seminars, books, all kinds of things,” he continued. “There’s areas in your relationship you can undoubtedly grow, and maybe there’s just an indifference in people where they don’t want to put in the energy to do it, or they don’t think they can.”
He added that most couples don’t communicate as much as they should.
“I don’t think a lot of people in their marriage really, really truthfully communicate all the needs and desires and cravings and yearnings they have for themselves, for their partner, all of it,” Laich said. “I think they lack a little bit of courage there, to share those things, that could really actually keep people together and light their marriage on fire.”
RELATED: Derek Hough Says Brooks Laich Is ‘Taking Good Care of’ Julianne Hough While She’s Sick
During an appearance on PEOPLE Now on Feb. 3, Hough’s brother Derek Hough declined to address his sister’s marriage — though did share that Laich had been tending to her while she was sick.
“Brooks is taking good care of her,” he said.
