Dance Moms Showdown: 11 Shocking Moments From Abby Lee & Maddie's Epic Feud
March 15 2017, Published 10:15 a.m. ET
From being slapped in the face by Kelly Hyland to competing with enemy Cathy Nesbitt-Stein, Abby Lee Miller has been involved in many feuds over the years. But nothing compares to her recent betrayal by former favorite Maddie Ziegler! Go inside the Dance Moms stars’ epic feud in 10 clicks.
The drama started when Ziegler left Dance Moms after Season 6 to continue working with her new mentor Sia. Miller, 50, was accused of “lashing out” about Ziegler’s departure on her final episode. Even though Ziegler took home first at the competition, Miller ignored her and congratulated another student. She explained how she wouldn’t miss Ziegler and is instead worried for her current students.
Despite the episode, Miller continued to support her former student by promoting her projects on social media. That is, until Ziegler came out with her shocking tell-all book. In the book, Ziegler didn’t mention Miller once. Instead, she praised her new mentor Sia. “Chandelier definitely change my life – it made me more than just the girl from Dance Moms,” Ziegler wrote. “It opened a lot of doors and opportunities for me.”
Although Miller’s name wasn’t mentioned, she was certainly present in the book. “Before I met Sia, I would say yes to a lot of things I didn’t want to do,” she penned. “Because I thought I had to – I didn’t want to disappoint anyone. I’d be overwhelmed by the amount of work on my plate. Sia always tells me you have to have time off, step back and appreciate the moment.”
She even did the unthinkable: slam Miller’s choreography. “I haven’t loved every dance we’ve done,” the dancer-turned-actress wrote. “Some I thought were a little weird or silly, or even inappropriate for kids our age.”
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But the hits didn’t stop there, as she exposed the dark side of dancing for Miller. “I did a lot of crying in those early competitions,” Ziegler, 14, wrote. “My nerves were really bad because I felt so much was riding on every single number we performed. If you watch me in the wings, you’ll always see me biting my nails. I put a lot of pressure on myself, I didn’t want to disappoint anyone – my teachers, my teammates, my mom, our audience.”
Ziegler explained how she was even forced to perform while sick. “There were many, many times I had to push through and compete, even if I was feeling sick,” she penned. “I remember I once had bronchitis and I could barely breathe without coughing, but I had a solo and a group number to get through. I literally had to hold my breath through the numbers so I wouldn’t start a coughing fit.”
She continued how the older she got, the more intense the competitions became. "The fierce competitive side of all this was something I never saw coming,” she said. “Things can and do get ugly sometimes because people don’t behave like good sports. Sometimes people go a little crazy.”
But Miller didn’t give up without a fight, as she snubbed her right back by refusing to promote The Maddie Diaries: A Memoir. Instead of encouraging followers to buy the book, she urged them to check out the projects of two of her students. At the iHeartRadio Music Awards, she praised students Kendall Vertes, Kalani Hilliker and Nia Sioux for looking “beautiful,” completely snubbing Ziegler.
Ziegler, 14, answered back by comparing working with Miller to Sia during an interview with Build. “When I started learning the choreography, I was so uncomfortable with it because I’m usually trained to point my feet and make sure I have perfect technique,” she said of appearing in Sia’s music video for “Chandelier.” “But for this, I could let loose and do whatever and not be criticized for making a mistake. My mistakes were good. They liked my mistakes. Everything was stress free.” She added that working with Sia meant she didn’t have to “worry about winning a competition or making my teacher happy.”
It seems Miller has surrendered in their feud, as she has refrained from posting on social media for five days. Her followers have even noticed. “Why is Abby not posting? I hope everything is okay,” one fan wrote, as another commented, “I think it's really sad the way Maddie is treating you.”