Dance Moms’ Abby Lee Miller Blames ‘the Moms’ From the Series For ‘Ruining’ Her Business
Dance Moms alum Abby Lee Miller claimed that the moms from the popular Lifetime series were responsible for “destroying” her business during her appearance on the “Just B With Bethenny Frankel” podcast.
“What the show did and the moms did is ruin my business,” Abby, 58, revealed to host Bethenny Frankel in the Thursday, May 9, episode. “It was a six-week docuseries. I thought, ‘For six weeks, I can handle this in my studio.’ [Lifetime] was using my studio for free.”
Abby claimed that the moms “refused to homeschool their kids” which delayed filming for the series until after school got out for the day at around 4:00 p.m. This coincided with the time other families would be arriving for their dance lessons, but with filming happening in the studio, that couldn’t happen.
Abby also revealed why she thinks she wasn’t invited to Lifetime’s Dance Moms: The Reunion, and it has to do with her former students.
"I think the kids can't face me because they know they would never be where they are today if it wasn't for the show,” Abby told the Real Housewives of New York alum.
Abby continued, “There’s two little girls named Brooke and Paige Hyland, who I was very close to, much closer emotionally and family-wise than any of the other kids. Their mother was in my original competition team when I was 14 years old. She stayed at my studio, then she left, got married, had kids, brought them to my studio at two years old and then stayed until the show started. My point is, if this was so toxic for all these kids, why did they come back at three and four and five and six in my studio?”
Bethenny, 53, pushed back a bit at Abby’s claims and said that the kids’ return to the studio could have been a result of their mothers urging them to return.
“There were other studios in town,” Abby replied. “Mine was the best.”
The reality TV star also alleged Lifetime wanted to portray her and her dance studio in a certain light.
“And what you don't read, what you don't read that Lifetime didn't want anyone to know. They wanted me to be this down and out, po-dunk, heavy set dance teacher, screaming at these little kids because that made good TV,” Abby told Bethenny. "Nobody talks about the kids that I've had in, drum roll please, 25 Broadway shows. Did you read that anywhere? 25 Broadway shows. I have had kids from Pittsburgh in, that I took, that I drove their asses back and forth to the auditions.”
While Abby didn’t appear in Dance Moms: The Reunion, she revealed that her time as a reality TV star was far from over when she dropped a teaser for her upcoming show, Abby Lee Dance Dance With Me. However, a premiere date for the new series had not been revealed at the time of this article’s publication.
