Maddie Ziegler rose to fame at an early age on Dance Moms — a show centered around Abby Lee Miller’s Dance Company — but now the 15-year-old professional dancer reveals to Us Weekly that she doesn’t have a relationship with Miller despite her five years on the show.
Us Weekly caught up with Ziegler at the Children Mending Hearts’ Empathy Rocks fundraiser in Bel Air, California, and she dished on where she stands in terms of communication with Miller, 51.
“We don’t keep in contact,” Ziegler told Us on Sunday, June 10, when asked her thoughts on Miller’s current health battle and whether the two have been in touch. “But I wish her the best.”
Miller recently underwent surgery on June 5, amid her battle with cancer after she was hospitalized with back pain in April, which led to emergency spinal surgery. The reality star was then diagnosed with non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, a treatable form of cancer.
Miller opened up about her strained relationship with Ziegler — who found success working with pop star Sia during her time on the Lifetime show — in a 2017 interview special titled Dance Moms: Abby Lee Tells All.
The former dance instructor revealed at the time that she never had a falling out with Ziegler and even felt like she was a mother figure to the young dancer. She also explained that she is “disappointed” that she doesn’t share in Ziegler’s post-show successes.
“I talk to the media, I might not pick up the phone and call her, but I tell everybody else!” Miller said of Ziegler. “I tell my friends, ‘She’s adorable, she’s wonderful! It’s a great film!’ I look at what she has done, and the other jobs and the other opportunities besides Dance Moms, they all involve dancing, they’re all about dance, they’re all judging dance, dancing, performing, something!”
She added: “I don’t think had she not been in my studio, she would be where she is today. And I can confidently say that. I’m not gonna say that I ‘made’ anybody, I didn’t make her, her mom and dad created her, but I certainly added my two cents in.”
Miller recently completed a stint behind bars after being sentenced in May 2017 to 366 days in prison for bringing $120,000 worth of undocumented Australian currency into the United States, in addition to bankruptcy fraud.
With reporting by Emily Marcus
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