Though “Dancing with the Stars” judge Derek Hough has millions of fans the world over, his beginnings were humbling, if not downright traumatic.

The former “DTWS” dance pro and choreographer was bullied so badly in his youth that a bunch of kids once held a gun to his head, Hough revealed in an interview Monday.

That was the worst of a nightmarish elementary school experience that left him with night terrors, bedwetting and fear that kept him from sleeping over at friends’ houses, he told Lauryn and Michael Bosstick on their eponymous podcast, “The Bossticks.”

It was partly why the “little, scrawny-looking kid,” moved to London at age 12 to train in dance, Hough explained. “I really found it hard to connect with kids at school, to hang out, and I didn’t have, like, the little cliques. So I was always on the outside just trying to fit in and get in there.”

While dance was a refuge, it also attracted bullies’ attention.

“Being a dancer didn’t help. I would get the crap beaten out of me,” the multiple Emmy winner said. “At one school a kid punched me in the face, I was bleeding everywhere. But then I retaliated, and started beating him up, but then I got expelled from school.”

When a girl got a crush on him at 10 or 11, “the other guys didn’t like that, so they found me in a corner, and beat me up,” the dancer recounted.

At home it was even worse. The neighbor kids went beyond bullying — “too nice of a word” to describe them — to torment, the six-time “DWTS” mirror ball winner said. “They would hang me up in a tree by my ankles and put a gun to my head and spit on me, or hogtie me in a field, and it was — I was scared. I would have night terrors.”

He became a “terrified kid” who wet the bed and was “scared of the dark, scared of my shadow, just scared, and constantly on edge.”

When Hough was 12, acclaimed dancers Shirley and Corky Ballas — the parents of future “DWTS” pro Mark Ballas — invited him to London to train for a few months. Once there, in a supportive environment, the aspiring pro dancer found his footing and ended up staying 10 years, winning competitions and awards.

“I had a clear goal. I had a clear direction of what I wanted to do,” Hough said. “I felt like I was on track, and I felt safe.”

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