A reunion show on Lifetime included several former cast members of “Dance Moms”. One very noteworthy absence is that of their old teacher, Abby Lee Miller. Had Miller been present, cast members told BI they don’t believe they would have received “closure”.
While some of the original cast members from the Lifetime series about the brutal world of competition dancing return, at least one previous star is absent.
Though many clips of Miller berating the show’s young performers (or their moms) are shown, Abby Lee Miller, the dance instructor who formed the Abby Lee Dance Company at the heart of “Dance Moms,” does not appear in the special. Stars of the show now have varying ties with the woman who sparked their careers.
Six now-adult “Dance Moms” alumni—Chloé Lukasiak, JoJo Siwa, Kendall Vertes, Brooke and Paige Hyland, and Kalani Hilliker—process and talk about their experiences on the program during the reunion. And if Miller had been there, some of them said, it would not have been feasible.
“I think that none of us probably would’ve wanted to do it if she was there because we are each other’s safe space,” Hilliker, who continues to work with Miller, said to Business Insider.
Saying that among our group and our core felt safe for us to be as vulnerable, honest, and open as we were. We probably wouldn’t have been able to communicate how we really felt and get the closure we needed if the instigator had been present,” Hilliker added.
Miller’s possible attendance was the “first question” Brooke Hyland and her younger sister Paige had when they received the invitation to the reunion, she told BI. Season four saw the departure of the pair and their mother, Kelly Hyland, following a physical altercation between Kelly and Miller that is well known as the “You’re eating my face!” scene.
According to fellow “Dance Moms” graduate JoJo Siwa, Miller has been “supportive” of her work and they have regular conversations. Though Hilliker and Miller have a “good relationship,” Hilliker told E! News that she doesn’t always forgive the teacher for the way she treated her or her friends.
Though cast members’ experiences on “Dance Moms” varied, Kendall Vertes told BI that she valued the chance to return for the reunion and discuss the series’ happenings with the other women who were part of its child cast.
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“Coming together to talk things through, just the girls,” Vertes remarked. “We’re finally able to close the book, move on, chase our dreams and kind of leave all of that in the past—not the moms interfering, not Abby interfering.” Hulu Live TV will stream “Dance Moms: The Reunion,” which premieres on Lifetime on May 1 at 8 p.m. ET.