When it comes to those missing from the Dance Momsspecial, Abby Lee Miller is at the top of the pyramid.
While many of her Abby Lee Dance Company students, including JoJo Siwa, Chloé Lukasiak andKalani Hillikerrecently came together for Lifetime's Dance Moms: The Reunion, their former teacher said she wasn't invited back. And she has idea as to why.
"I think the kids can't face me," Abby said on the May 8 episode of the Just B with Bethenny Frankel podcast, "because they know they would never be where they are today if it wasn't for the show."
E! News has reached out to Lifetime on the reason for not issuing an invite, but has not heard back.
The 58-year-old also knows that the show—which aired on Lifetime from 2011-2019—damaged her relationship with several former students. Specifically, she reflected on her past bond with Brooke and Paige Hyland, which fell apart after Abby had a huge fight with their mother, Kelly Hyland.
"There's two little girls," she explained, "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," she continued, "then she left, got married, had kids, brought them to my studio at 2 years old."
All of which leads Abby to wonder, "If this was so toxic for all these kids, why did they come back? The kids came back. There were other studios in town, mine was the best."
Despite the drama that played out on the show, Abby emphasized that it wasn't all bad for her girls.
"There were good times, and it was fun," she added. "And they loved what they were doing."
But she does feel that Dance Moms was ultimately detrimental to her career. "What the show did, and the moms did ruined my business," she noted. "They destroyed by business."
But for its young cast, amid the tears and the tension on the dance floor, the experience created bonds for life.
"I don't think people know that we're friends," Kalani recently told E! News. "And there's so many different storylines on the show between our mothers that people just tend to think that we all hate each other, or that we picked sides with different people. But we're actually all super close."
Adding, "It's a trauma bond."
And JoJo echoed the statement.
"It really is," she said. "Whether that be a good trauma or a bad trauma. It doesn't necessarily mean it's a negative thing, but there's just such a familiarity."
Keep reading to find out what the former cast of Dance Moms is up to now.
Maddie Ziegler
Kenzie Ziegler
Chloe Lukasiak
Nia Sioux
Brooke Hyland
Paige Hyland
Kendall Vertes
JoJo Siwa
Kalani Hilliker
Asia Monet Ray
Camryn Bridges
Brynn Rumfallo
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“I think a huge reason why we all came to do this reunion is to show our viewers and the audience our true personalities and who we are as adults,” Vertes told Yahoo Entertainment.
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