Topline
Some of the cast of “Dance Moms,” the popular Lifetime reality series about dance instructor Abby Lee Miller and her students, will reunite Wednesday for a reunion episode as the now-grown up stars reflect on Miller’s controversial teaching methods, five years after the show’s finale.
Key Facts
A two-hour “Dance Moms” reunion special will air on Lifetime on Wednesday at 8 p.m. EDT, five years after the popular series concluded its nine-year run.
The special will reunite several dancers from the series, some of whom have proceeded to have successful solo careers—including JoJo Siwa, now known for her singing career—as well as their mothers who co-starred on the reality show.
According to the trailer, the former cast members discuss the most infamous moments from the show and their experiences under Miller’s instruction—whose methods have been slammed by her former students as “toxic” and “abusive”—sometimes through tears.
Lifetime announced it will air “Dance Moms: Epic Showdowns,” half-hour episodes featuring the biggest fights from the series immediately following the reunion, hosted by Christi Lukasiak, who starred in “Dance Moms” as the mother of dancer Chloe Lukasiak.
The reunion and “Dance Moms: Epic Showdowns” will air on the Lifetime channel Wednesday and will be made available to stream on the Lifetime app on Thursday.
Who’s Going—and Not Going—to The Reunion?
The former Abby Lee Dance Company students attending the reunion are JoJo Siwa, Chloe Lukasiak, Brooke Hyland, Paige Hyland, Kendall Vertes and Kalani Hilliker. Lukasiak and the Hyland sisters are the only original cast members attending: They starred on the show between seasons one and four, marking 10 years since their last appearance on the show as series regulars. Vertes starred between seasons two and seven, while Siwa and Hilliker both joined in the series’ fifth season. Notably, their former instructor Miller will not attend the reunion. People Magazine reported, citing an anonymous source, that some of the cast members requested that Miller not be part of the reunion. The other original cast members, Maddie and Mackenzie Ziegler and Nia Sioux, will not attend the reunion. In the trailer, Siwa criticized the absent cast members, stating: “Them not being here is kind of like, ‘Let me erase my past, pretend it never happened, shove it down the drain,’ when it’s like, that’s why you are who you are.” Paige Hyland defended some of the absentees in a clip, stating they may still be “processing” what they experienced on the show. Though Miller is absent, much of the trailer featured discussion about the instructor: Siwa said she felt Miller was “always right,” despite her controversial methods, while Paige Hyland slammed Miller for doing “so many nasty things to me.”
Surprising Fact
Of the reunion attendees, only Siwa and Hilliker are still in contact with Miller, the cast revealed in a Good Morning America interview. Maddie Ziegler previously said she is “at peace” with no longer speaking to Miller, calling her dance studio a “toxic environment.”
Tangent
“Dance Moms” has endured in popularity through social media, particularly TikTok, where clips from the show regularly go viral. More than 880,000 videos have been posted on TikTok using the hashtag #dancemoms, and many former cast members are active on the platform. Siwa said in the reunion trailer that she feels the show is “now bigger than it ever was.”
Key Background
“Dance Moms” premiered in 2011 and aired for eight seasons, documenting the lives of dancers at the Abby Lee Dance Company in Pittsburgh, before it relocated to Los Angeles in season six. The series followed the girls, some as young as age six, and their mothers who frequently engaged in intense verbal confrontations with Miller. The show attracted controversy for Miller’s strict teaching methods. She often verbally berated the children, in some cases making derogatory remarks about their weight and appearance, and sparked controversy for choreographing dances in which the girls would wear revealing outfits. Kelly Hyland, the mother of Brooke and Paige, was arrested in 2014 on assault charges following one of the show’s most infamous conflicts. The fight, which aired on the show’s fourth season, escalated from a verbal conflict to a physical altercation when Hyland asked Miller to “get your finger out of my face,” while putting her own finger in Miller’s face. Miller approached Hyland’s finger while making a biting motion, prompting Hyland to slap Miller and pull her hair in response. The charges against Hyland were dropped the following year. Hyland and her daughters departed the show soon after, and filed a lawsuit against Miller in October 2014, alleging Miller had thrown a chair at Paige Hyland while filming, as well as allegations Miller had “insulted and abused Paige on an almost daily basis.” A Los Angeles Superior Court judge dismissed the lawsuit in 2015, citing insufficient evidence. Miller also faced other legal troubles and spent nearly one year in a California prison between 2017 and 2018 for bankruptcy fraud and concealing income.
Further Reading
Dance Moms Cast Reunion: Everything You Need to Know (Lifetime)
Cast of ‘Dance Moms’ reflect on life on the show ahead of reunion special (ABC News)
Artist Who Recorded JoJo Siwa’s ‘Karma’ A Decade Ago Goes Viral—And Outcharts Siwa On iTunes (Forbes)