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Watch: Abby Lee Miller Reveals How Dance Moms “Destroyed” Her Relationships With Former Students
Abby Lee Miller isn’t dancing around her estrangement from former student Maddie Ziegler.
In fact, the Dance Moms alum is firing back at Ziegler’s previous comments that Miller created a “toxic environment” for her young mentees while filming the iconic 2010s reality show.
“When you wanted to win and you wanted to come in extra and you wanted more private lessons and you were the driving force, not your mother—she was looking for husband No. 3,” Miller told E!’s Hot Goss hosts Eyal Booker and Lonnie Marts IIV in an exclusive interview, “why didn’t you say it then?”
The Abby Lee Dance Company founder went on to note that she not only championed the now-23-year-old in her competitive dance training, she was also a support system for Ziegler during her parents Melissa Ziegler and Kurt Ziegler‘s 2011 divorce.
“When your mother and father are screaming obscenities across the room and you’re hugging me and you’re holding on to me as tight as you can Maddie, why didn’t tell me then you don’t want to do a solo every week?” Miller continued. “You don’t want to win every week. You don’t want to be in the front. You could have said that easily to me.”
And while the 60-year-old noted, “We were close enough that could have happened,” she added of the Fitting In actress, “She wanted to win, she was a perfectionist.”
E! News has reached out to the Zieglers for comment but did not receive an immediate response.
As for what it would take to mend their fractured relationship all these years later? Miller is waiting for Ziegler to choreograph the next steps.
“I’m the elder,” she stated, “and you have to speak to your elders.”
Of course, Ziegler isn’t the only one of Miller’s former students who has suggested she saved a great deal of tears for her pillow. Miller said she was shocked when Nia Sioux spoke out about her complicated experience as a child dancer.
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Claiming the dancers weren’t under contract, Miller told Hot Goss Sioux could have exited stage left “just like” Ziegler and JoJo Siwa, adding, “They never left until they had a better offer.”
In fact, Miller thinks those who’ve spoken ill of her in the years since the show’s 2017 finale should eat a piece of humble pie.
“They’re too big for their britches,” the cancer survivor said. “They don’t have time for their dance teacher. Or they think they did it, their mom and dad did it, they paid for the lessons.”
Ultimately, Miller—who now uses a wheelchair for mobility—chooses to remember all she did to support her former students.
“I know what I did for them in my studio,” she reflected. “I drove them back and forth, I took them to the auditions, I took them to cocktail parties, I introduced them to the right people.”
Dance Moms drama aside, Miller is ready to give the same tireless mentoring to a fresh crop of up-and-comers on her new star search Abby vs. Cathy: Hit the 8!.
As the name suggests, the competition reunites her with former nemesis Cathy Nesbitt-Stein, though Miller is clear she doesn’t see the fellow studio owner as a true adversary.
“We were never rivals!” Miller declared to E!. “I just shut her up real quickly. She sits next to me, she’s like a little bug and I can just squash her.”
Catch new episodes of Hot Goss every Thursday at 11 a.m. PT on E! Online and @eentertainment YouTube!
In the meantime, keep reading to see where your favorite Dance Moms alums are today.
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