Abby Lee Miller is getting candid about her rift with Maddie Ziegler.
The star, 57, tackled her relationship with the 20-year-old dancer and her former student — with whom she traded words last year after Ziegler called her experience on the reality show “toxic” — on the latest episode of Sofia Franklin’s Sofia with an F podcast.
“I can’t really separate Maddie from her sister and her mother, and there is some … I don’t want to use the term ‘bad blood,’ but there are some devastating things there,” Miller told Franklin.
Miller then went on to describe what some of the contention stems from — including in part Mackenzie Ziegler’s “It’s a Girl Party” song, which she claims she did not receive any funds from despite producing it.
“A song that went to №1 in three countries on iTunes, ‘It’s a Girl Party.’ I produced it. I bought the song. I did everything for that child. Mack Z was my creation,” Miller said.
@sofiafranklyn @Abby Lee Miller on reconciling with the Zieglers #sofiawithanf ♬ original sound - Sofia Franklyn
“The video itself was $27,000 and I got my $27,000 back immediately because the video went to №1 too, but I’ve never seen one penny from the music,” she continued. “And I had a 360 deal with Mackenzie. So where is it?”
Miller said there was “a lot of ugly darkness there,” which she admitted was hard to “separate Maddie from.” However, she said she would be potentially open to speaking to Maddie if she made the first move and reached out.
Miller’s latest comments come a year after Maddie opened up about her “toxic” experiences while on Dance Moms and how she has felt since ceasing contact with Miller — who had been known for her toughness while working with the young dancers — in an interview with Cosmopolitan.
“She was distraught [when I left]. For the longest time, we felt so guilty,” Ziegler recalled of Miller. “She trained me, she helped me, but also, I knew I would be okay without her and I was sick of being in a toxic environment.”
She continued, “I was like, ‘This is not for me. I can’t do this.’ I haven’t spoken to her since. I feel at peace.”
Miller responded at the time in a video posted on her YouTube channel, saying she was surprised to hear that Maddie felt that way. She also shared her version of events.
“What I don’t understand [about] the pressure, the ‘toxic’ situation — if it was so toxic, why did you keep doing it?” Miller said, while also crediting Ziegler for her hard work.
And though Ziegler told Cosmo she “really tried to leave for the last three seasons” of her six-season run on the Lifetime show, which aired from 2011 to 2019, Miller said in her video: “Newsflash: The kids in the original cast never had a contract. The moms had a contract, but the kids, well … they were just kind of there on a handshake.”
Miller continued, “I thought [Ziegler] wanted to be there. … If she said, ‘I don’t want to go, I’m not going,’ kicking and screaming, stomping her feet, I’m sure her mother wouldn’t have brought her — or she would have come and talked to me about it. She never did that.”
She added elsewhere in the video that she hopes “someday I’m at peace with it all, too.”
