Maddie Ziegler Recalls ‘Stressful’ ‘Dance Moms’ Experience, Defends Abby Lee Miller
After being on Dance Moms for more than six years, Maddie Ziegler decided to leave the hit Lifetime reality series to pursue a career in Hollywood. While it was extremely difficult to leave her friends behind, the So You Think You Can Dance host admitted that the series has become “too stressful” for her.
In an interview with Seventeen magazine, Maddie Ziegler opened up about her decision to leave Dance Moms, her relationship with ALDC coach Abby Lee Miller, and how she deals with haters.
Excited to reveal my first @Seventeen cover shot! Get your copy when it hits the newsstands next week?? pic.twitter.com/POJu02A7Kp
— Maddie Ziegler (@maddieziegler) June 29, 2016
Even before her exit was confirmed, several insiders predicted that it was only a matter of time before the Zieglers leave Dance Moms. It also did not help that Maddie and Mackenzie, along with their mother Melissa Gisoni, would often complain about how they had to pass up on several projects just to be with ALDC.
On several occasions, the Zieglers said that they are tired of the needless Dance Moms drama and are ready to move on to bigger things.
“Honestly, I’d rather be with you on a job than with moms that are all negative all the time. I don’t want to sit on a bench anymore. I’m sick of it. We’ve turned a lot of things down and I just don’t want to do that anymore. We just have to be more available. There is more to the world than dance competitions,” Melissa told Maddie in one of the Season 6 episodes.
While Maddie is thrilled to be part of several projects, including So You Think You Can Dance and The Book of Henry, she said that leaving Dance Moms was never an easy decision to make. The reality star, however, admitted that the pressure she gets from Abby was just too much to handle. The ALDC coach previously compared her to Chloe Lukasiak then to newcomer Brynn Rumfallo. She also gave her a hard time for missing a couple of training days when she was filming her new movie.
“Leaving Dance Moms was a hard decision to make, but it was getting too stressful. Now, I feel like I’m so free… I feel like I had so much more pressure on me to be the best in the room.”
In spite their differences, Maddie Ziegler had nothing but nice words for her former coach, Abby Lee Miller. She, however, admitted that Miller was “exactly how she is on the show” in real life. After spending several years together, Maddie said that she always knew that Abby only wanted her to be the best dancer she could be.
“But the thing that I like about her most is she can actually be funny sometimes. And she also wanted me to be good,” she added.
Maddie is very active on social media. The Dance Moms alum has over 7.5 million followers on Instagram and Twitter combined. She also has more than 266,000 subscribers on her YouTube channel. However, not everyone has positive things to say about her. Maddie shared that she already has her fair share of haters at a young age.
“I would be like, ‘Why are they mad at me?'” she wondered.
She, however, said that most of her “haters” were people who only do it to get noticed. In February, Maddie Ziegler’s Instagram account has been hacked. It did not take long before fans of the Dance Moms alum lashed at the hacker, wondering why they would spend so much time harassing the young dancer. Alums Paige and Kelly Hyland, as well as Chloe Lukasiak, had also been victims of hackers.
[Photo by Jason Merritt/Getty Images]
