‘Dance Moms’ Star Abby Lee Miller Responds After Maddie Ziegler Calls Show ‘Toxic’

“Dance Moms” alum Abby Lee Miller is responding to former pupil Maddie Ziegler’s statements that the demonstrate was a “harmful environment.”

Ziegler, now 19, was just a little one when she starred on “Dance Mothers,” which was established within Miller’s dance studio, the Abby Lee Dance Enterprise, and aired for 8 seasons from July 2011 right up until September 2019 on Life time.

Even though 1 of Miller’s standout students until eventually her 2016 exit, Ziegler disclosed for the duration of an interview with Cosmopolitan that she now was “at peace” with the truth that she and the notoriously rigorous dance mentor are no for a longer time in conversation.

“She was distraught (when I still left). For the longest time, we felt so responsible,” recalled Ziegler. “She skilled me, she served me, but also, I knew I would be Ok without having her and I was ill of becoming in a poisonous natural environment.”

“I was like, ‘This is not for me. I can not do this.’ I have not spoken to her since,” she additional, with the magazine noting that Ziegler does not plan on speaking to Miller ever all over again.

Ziegler, who went on to seem in a number of of pop star Sia’s videos and act in strike films including “West Facet Story,” reported her spouse and children tried out to have her go away the sequence earlier. “But when you’re in a deal, it is seriously challenging. Ultimately, I eventually got out,” she explained.

Following the job interview was printed, Miller, 56, responded to Ziegler’s feedback in a video on her YouTube channel. She remembered the tricky-working Ziegler as “a child I loved.”

“What I really do not have an understanding of about the stress, the ‘toxic’ scenario — if it was so toxic, why did you continue to keep performing it?” Miller requested, introducing, “I tried using to quit lots of a time, and I was compelled to arrive back to set simply because I signed a deal.”

“Newsflash: the young ones in the original cast by no means had a contract,” Miller claimed. “The mothers experienced a contract, but the children, properly, no one preferred to spend the dollars and go by way of the approach so they ended up just sort of there on a handshake.” 

Miller went on to say that she by no means realized Ziegler, who she claimed “desired to be the greatest,” was so not happy in her tutelage, noting that Ziegler was eager to arrive into the studio at all hrs to prepare.

“I thought she preferred to be there … If she explained, ‘I don’t want to go, I’m not going,’ kicking and screaming, stomping her feet, I’m guaranteed her mother would not have brought her — or she would have occur and talked to me about it. She by no means did that,” she said.

Miller also proudly took some credit rating for Ziegler’s success today.

“I know that what I did for Maddie, with Maddie, served her succeed,” she claimed, afterwards incorporating, “I hope someday I am at peace with it all much too. But I know I will hardly ever forget about the names of my teachers.”

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