Maddie Ziegler Discussed Abby Lee Miller And Said That Her Reputation As The "Well-Treated Dancer" On "Dance Moms" Was Misleading
"I called my mom, and things were coming up from the past, and she apologized to me. She was like, 'I'm so sorry I put you through that.' It's so sad because she would never want to hurt us, but none of us knew how crazy it would get."
Maddie Ziegler looked back on her time on Dance Moms in a recent episode of Emily Ratajkowski's podcast, High Low.
The actor and dancer began by saying that she began dancing competitively at age 4 and was scouted for Dance Moms when she was around 6. "I've blocked out so much of my childhood that I actually don't know what my life was like, even, just before working," Maddie said.
"It's weird to find out things that I did when I was younger on TikTok. I'll see people posting things of me and I'm like, 'I don't even remember doing that," she continued, noting elsewhere that she'll watch the dances from the show but not episodes of the show itself. "To see a visual of how it played out is so weird."
When it comes to perfectionistic tendencies that she's had to "unlearn," Maddie alluded to her former dance teacher Abby Lee Miller by saying, "My thought process when I was younger, through my dance teacher, was like, You have to be the best. If you don't win, you're not good."
She continued, "When I was working on the show, I was seen as the lead dancer or the most well-treated dancer. Looking back — and a lot of people have started to say this — it's like, 'Well, she actually had the most pressure on her,' because she was like, 'You're my golden girl, so you have to lead everyone to victory every time,' which is just not sustainable."
Indeed, part of Maddie's reputation allegedly came from lines she was fed by production. She explained, "When I was doing the show, in the first season I was 7, [and] there were male producers saying, 'This is what you have to say.' My mom wasn't in the room, so I was like, OK, I just have to do whatever I'm being told. They would say, 'Say you're the best, say you're better than everyone else, say blah blah blah.' And so I was perceived as a little brat in the first season."
Maddie added, "I remember we watched the first episode at a viewing party for the launch of the show, and I just cried because I was like, Oh my gosh. Everyone thinks I'm this bitch and I'm not. I'm 7! It was so weird. It helped me a lot to be able to be like, I can say no. I can stand up for myself. But being so young, you don't realize all those things."
Her time on Dance Moms still affects Maddie: "Last year, I was having a really bad panic attack, and I called my mom, and things were coming up from the past, and she apologized to me. She was like, 'I'm so sorry I put you through that.' It's so sad because she would never want to hurt us, but none of us knew how crazy it would get."
Thankfully, Maddie was able to leave the show after six seasons when she was 11 — with the help of another famous face: "[My mom] really did everything to try to break our contract and pull us out, and eventually did — with the help of Sia. She helped us a lot too."
You can watch the full interview with Maddie here.
