ABC/KELSEY McNEALJulianne Hough may have donned her last sequin.
The two-time Dancing With the Stars champ has apparently given up any hope for a threepeat, telling E! News' Ryan Seacrest this morning that she will not be returning to the reality hit this spring.
"I'm not going to be back next season," she said on Seacrest's KIIS-FM radio show. "That's final. I'm definitely not going back next season."
The 20-year-old was quick to add that her bowing out was not a reaction to her recent medical emergency but rather an attempt to further her country music career.
"It's because I really, really want to focus on the music and kind of be taken seriously a little bit," she said. "I think it's hard to be on Dancing With the Stars and be singing and kind of get that confusion, and so I'm really going to focus on the music.
"Music is where I want to be."
Hough will be returning for next week's season finale, however, and promised that she won't forget the show that launched her. Just this week, Hough performed her new single, "My Hallelujah Song," on the show.
She wrote in a posting on her Fancast blog last night that while she won't be back for the foreseeable future, she hasn't completely ruled out a return to the show.
"I won't be on Dancing this spring season," she wrote. "I don't know about the fall. Maybe, maybe not. We'll see."
As it is, Hough's departure ends the show's element of sibling rivalry, with producers no longer able to play up her competition with brother Derek. However, it's possible the show is already fashioning a remedy, having introduced the pairing of new pro Lacey Schwimmer and her dancing brother Benji on last week's results show.
(Originally published Nov. 20, 2008 at 1:13 p.m. PT.)