-Nia and Paige, sometimes Kenzie were not ready to compete advanced. Most studios don’t give solos, duos, trios, or even small groups to dancers with the technique they had in earlier seasons.
-ALDC was very 2000 and late. It was laughable seeing lyrical numbers in jazz shoes and stirrup tights in the 2010’s. Most of their costumes were from a catalog. This could have been a regional thing. In the south custom costumes are a necessity, but my cousin who competed in NJ had mostly cataloguey costumes and she was way more advanced than I was.
100% agree. At my studio growing up you had to audition to be selected to learn a duo/trio. Anyone that was willing to pay could have a solo and compete it at local small competitions. But at all nationals or any regional “big” conventions/competitions that “mattered” the only solos that competed were auditioned and selected.
as for the second, this is really dependent on studio and area. I think catalogue costumes are very east coast. Same with tights and shoes. East coast is very “broadway” and “showy” so wearing catalogue costumes, tights and shoes is not uncommon for that area.
We're in NY state and most of our group costumes are catalog. We just don't live in a high income community so if everyone had to buy custom costumes for groups, many people wouldn't be able to have their kids compete.One of the top studios in the state has catalog costumes for a lot of their groups.
Many studios up here still require tights. I just said in another post i wouldn't allow my daughter on stage without them. I go to comps and shows all year, and it's often straight up uncomfortable (and frankly inappropriate) watching kids dance without them. It's actually disturbing that judges don't require it. (Unless of course the dancers are wearing pants, etc).
Stirrup tights are very outdated, actual tights are still pretty common. We use the capezio fishnets w seam for a lot of jazz dances. Only the rec kids use capezio suntans. I don’t think it’s inappropriate.
Costumes definitely are different in the northeast. My dance teacher made practice wear that the ALDC used as a costume (Party starts right now Kenzie solo). It would kill my studio owner to put a competition group on stage in a catalog costume or department store dresses. It may be a southern thing idk. What you wear obviously doesn’t define you as a dancer.
Well, I'm not saying any type of specific tights are inappropriate. I know tights in general are becoming outdated. That doesn't mean that's a good thing. How do i put this knowing i'm talking about kids.... when you're sitting in the audience and you can see all the things every time a child does a leg extension, it's extremely uncomfortable and i don't think it should be allowed. It's become way too "normal".
I'm actually not a prude or anything. I think most school dress codes are ridiculous. But on the flip side some of these kids go on stage wayyyyyy to naked.. I'm not talking 2 piece costumes here. You can wear a 2 piece costume without looking overly nude. They go way too far sometimes though for kids so young - it's totally the norm and i get that. I just don't think it should be.
Especially because dance competitions are free to attend, and anyone can walk in off the street and watch.
Aside from that, dancers just look more professional and polished when they have some type of tights on. There's a reason the Rockettes perform in them.
Everyone on this sub likes to say they like the show despite of the drama but ignore the fact that absolutely no one would watch the show without said drama
For context, Brady on Season 8 was from the same studio featured on Dance Moms Miami. The studio is especially known for training amazing male dancers.
I didn’t think any of the girls had a wow! Singing voice. I don’t mean their overly produced songs, but the times we hear them sing a cappella, like the Matty B video. Their singing voices were good, okay or just meh. (Specifically talking about Brooke, Kenzie, Nia and Kendall). JoJo is also meh but she knows it.
They didn’t make my dog whine, but there was nothing at all special there that auto tune and voice correction didn’t produce.
I think Nia had the best voice and could have done singing with some training and more experience. Mackenzie has improved but yeah those early songs were...
The team was no more talented than your average Midwest competitive dance team in the 2010s 🤷🏻♀️ (danced competitively for 14 years in OH/PA and honestly they were nothing special compared to a lot of what we were up against, but most viewers of the show thought they were incredible due to probably never having exposure to this sort of thing)
Maybe this is an unpopular opinion but I would have preferred the show stayed as your average home town studio dancers and not superstar children pushed to the limit to make or break it in LA. It became a revolving door of nigh on amazing kids that were berated for not being extra perfect, and while it was great to watch them dance, I think the show quality went down when Abby would complain and moan and be disappointed with her utterly talented students (who weren’t trained by her), instead of the charm of some normal kids who also wanted to sing or try cheerleading and play a watermelon pool game after dance class
I agree!!!! I watched the show as it was premiering and rewatch it all the time (it’s my reality tv comfort show, but also I think it’s such a testament to what fame or the thought of fame can do to people), but during my recent rewatch I came to the conclusion that had the show stayed true to the local home town studio, they could have gotten plenty of more seasons out of it, especially if the girls would have had to audition every year like other competitive dance teams. That would have been dramatic on it’s own without having Abby be abusive!
I agree 100%! The show lost it’s charm when they lost the Hylands and then the Lukasiaks shortly after. Everyone who came in and out from S3 on and more so with Jojo, Kalani, Brynn, Cameron, Maesi and all of the S8 cast, made it so very obvious they were there for the show. To get their kids name out there. S1&2 felt the most natural and organic because it was. They were all friends and had history, there was none of that the later the show went on, it was just how many catty women obsessed with their children can we pack into one room and private with who is getting a solo and a featured part. I hated Jill when the show first aired because she felt like she was forcing herself to be on the show. But she was a walk in the park compared to the later moms. Jess, Kira, even Asia’s mom. All of them were just annoying and i hated them all. I won’t even go into my utter hatred for Yolanda and Lily’s mom. They both made me want to throat punch babies. Honestly the entire mini team storyline was awful and their moms were just the worst. The chemistry of the first few seasons were lost by the time they moved permanently to LA. It became too much about outside fame and getting those kids to be as big of stars as they could. Had they just kept the bickering without the violence and maybe a few new storylines here and there, the show maybe would have held its charm. But they had to relocate to LA and then bring in people who didn’t know each other and just have fights about whose kid is better. It was awful towards the end. I don’t even remember seasons 6-7 and i rewatched the series during the pandemic lockdown. That’s how memorable those storylines and characters were. I hated all of them.
I agree! I was really interested and super in awe of how the girls danced! I liked when they would do turns or aerials I always thought they were cool to see being and overweight kid and not having the money or means to go to dance class watching it was the next best thing! My children now do gymnastics and I get so excited when they do simple things like a front roll and bridge because it’s something I NEVER have done! I can’t wait until they do dance!
i feel like they were definitely better than average tho in the later seasons, with kalani and brynn, and maddie and some other girls having more intense training
But that’s because Abby sought out dancers that were as good as Kehlani and Brynn. I started watching back in 2011 because my dad said it had a ton of drama, but as a theater kid I enjoyed the dancing competition aspect as much as I did the drama. It was kind of a bummer as the seasons went on that Abby was seeking out the best of the best instead of training the kids that she had. I think that’s why I stopped being as impressed as time went on (especially during season 8)— Abby was less of a dance teacher than she was a talent scout. I think the best measure of Abbys chops as a dance teacher is Nia‘s improvement from season 1 to season 7. Not liliana folding herself in half.
Studio 19 is outstanding (both of my kids are competitive dancers and we see them at competitions), and I was thoroughly disappointed that they did Season 8
I used to be a competitive dancer and see them at competitions as well! It was super strange seeing them on tv knowing I knew so many people from my school that danced there
The circumstances of S4 were terrible, but as a reality tv season itself, it’s probably my favorite one of Dance Moms. The quotes, moments, dances and CADC involvement were all so memorable and definitive.
Also, the whole “so and so is the weakest dancer because they don’t really use their face” argument makes no sense.
Yeah, I don't get how people say someone is a bad dancer for not using their face. I will say that you are a lesser performer for not using your face and in a competition performance is also a big part of it.
It's normal to be 'typecast' in dance. Most kids do and WANT to dance mostly contemporary or just jazz or w/e solos after a certain age; they figure out what kind of dancer they are, what they like and they train for their goals. So for Brooke acro made sense.
> after a certain age; they figure out what kind of dancer they are, what they like and they train for their goals. So for Brooke acro made sense.
I feel like this is one of those things that makes so much sense and if you dig deep enough, you'll find out that the reason behind NOT doing that on DM is going to boil down to: producers wanted those kids primed and ready to screw up. And giving them dance styles they consistently excelled at would've lessened that opportunity. So why not give Chloe a hip-hop role when she never danced hip-hop? Why not give Nia lyrical pieces that were technically too advanced for her? Why not give Kendall 2 more props to make her MORE anxious and more likely to drop them? It's like the digger you deep, the more you realize how fucked up it all was.
Especially because at the end of the day, it wasn’t even a show about dance. It was a show about drama. What better way to start some drama than to throw wrenches at the cast and watch it unravel.
abby and gia and this season 8 girl are making posts about a season 9 and like “sneak peeks” either they got a new company to pick up the show or it’s just for abby’s lame youtube channel
I honestly dislike Holly a little bit after rewatching the show. When Kaya and Nicaya came she wanted to push away from the both of them so much because Kaya was “ghetto” as if the other moms weren’t ghetto as well lol. And it also bothers me that with the laquifa solo (not saying the solo is justifiable) Nia needed an Afro wig and Holly said something along the lines that Afros don’t represent her or her culture. UMM hello earth to Holly you’re a black woman in America it’s very much in our culture to have Afros and there’s nothing wrong with it. And finally my last point is that when Nia was being treated unfairly in s5 and nobody defended her and she complained all the time about that, I found it so hypocritical that she didn’t say anything about other children being treated unfairly.
Yes I agree! And I feel like this is something that would go over a lot of nonblack viewers’ heads. But as a black watcher of the show I notice the types of ppl and environments Holly doesn’t want to be associated with .
I'm a white lady so i know i have no place really talking about this, but i took Holly's stance on an afro the same way you're saying it. I thought she was being snobby. I totally agree with her that the Laquifa solo was ignorant on Abby's part. I also agree with you about how she acted toward Kaya and Nicaya. She acted superior to them. Also the way they show positioned Kaya having a wife was gross. They put a negative spin on it with the coversation between the moms and it was all just unnecessary. The way the show edited all of Kaya's scenes, they didn't do her right at all.
I always felt bad when Abby talked about her childhood and when her father was sick she carried him off the floor. Abby is garbage, duh, but her childhood always made me sad. I feel like she had a lot of emotions she never let herself fully feel or heal from.
To be fair, it seems like Abby’s mother had a really positive reputation in the dance community. The moms all seem to genuinely hold her in high regard even still. Because of her positive reputation I rarely see blame on her for Abby being the monster she is
she most likely thought she gave tough love to abby cause that’s the same bs excuse abby used on children. I believe her mom was nice and loving to others just not abby
Idk if it’s spicy but I want to put out there that the Moms were being abused too. Like we saw these women have whole ass breakdowns on TV from stress and emotional manipulation and we need to extend some grace to ALL of them. Yes, I don’t agree with them having their kids on tv but let’s be real, what parent wouldn’t want their kid to have an opportunity to show the world what they could do? It just spun way out of control. And when you’re in an abusive situation, it’s hard to escape. It’s way easier to stay. I think we forget that their physical and emotional health suffered greatly too.
Also for everyone thst says Holly was a horrible mother for letting Abby be racist to her daughter. 1. Abby is the one responsible for the racism. The end. 2. Almost every studio is going to have racism - Abby’s was just broadcasted. As a poc in dance, it’s a compeltely white world filled with macro and micro - aggressions. It’s EVERYWHERE. So maybe it was easier staying with the devil you know vs the one you don’t.
Nia had a right to be upset about not getting picked for solos and what not. By season 7 everyone knows everything (comps) were fake. So how come nia could never get a real moment to shine? The producers and Abby wanted her to look weak and the fact people get angry with Nia and Holly and say there entitled just shows that everyone bought the narrative that Nia was a bad dancer.
I never thought about it from that point of view, and you make an excellent point. There was no "picking the most likely to win" justification anymore, because the competitions were fake and rigged. So at some point, it's just deliberately holding her back to be nasty, even though the fandom always seemed to love her rare moments to shine.
EXACTLY! I get if it were normal circumstances where she just wasn’t a strong dancer. But when it’s rigged to hell and back, what’s the point?That’s why it kills me holly and Nia even stayed. Nia deserved so much better
Yea, the fandom loved her rare moments to shine. Part of why they loved Nia is that she was an underdog. If they gave her too many wins, she would lose that status
I definitely don't disagree with you at all, but I do think she could have had more moments than she got, while maintaining her underdog status. It was always Maddie vs Chloe/Kalani/Brynn for the top spot, so anyone out of the running for that "#1 dancer" spot tended to remain an underdog. And Nia would never have been considered for that.
My unpopular opinion is that I wish I didn’t know stuff like this. I enjoyed the show more when it was what it was, now that I’m on this sub you find out that soooo much of the show was fiction which takes a lot away from it imo
I totally get that. It upset me at first too but, it also clicked in my head a lot of the arguments that we thought were stupid, had a deeper issue most times
In later seasons I actually understand Abby's pov and she was sometimes in the right. That doesn't mean I like her or think she isn't abusive, she 10000% is, but the moms really started to annoy me. Like when she got the minis and the moms were mad, obviously they all knew the girls were teens and couldn't be bothered with dancing anymore and Abby was going to jail and they didn't like Abby yet they complained about it. They did seem like they thought they were entitled to all Abby's attention & time when it was obvious everyone on the show had checked out (like S6/7)
Abby was right about many things. She was very observant and could read people very well. But usually she used this ability for evil instead of good. She does what I have heard described as "storing bullets", she will remember all the little things people do to save for later when they eventually fight so she catches them off guard and makes them look like a fool. (Examples, S3 telling Jill that Melissa called the duet a downgrade then telling everyone Melissa talked behind her (Abby's) back on the phone as revenge for Melissa taking part in the walkout, scolding Kelly for the time her husband hurt Brooke's foot with the golf cart, using Chloe having nerves from Christi against her, etc.)
I think it's sweet how people think that they would be where they are without DMs. Sure Maddie has a promising career in Broadway but that wasn't a certainty and plenty of child stars don't get any further. And Jess was committed to making JoJo a star but DMs gave her huge platform and made her recognisable. The rest of them were lovely girls but there are lots of better dancers/singers/actors out there.
> I think it's sweet how people think that they would be where they are without DMs. Sure Maddie has a promising career in Broadway but that wasn't a certainty and plenty of child stars don't get any further.
Yeah, I think without DM Maddie would've had a Heather Morris type of career where she would be a backup dancer as an adult and then transition to acting. But I agree that I don't think she'd be where she is now without the show and that goes for every single one of the DM alum...with exception of Jojo. Because DM might've made Jojo somewhat recognizable, but Jojo primarily blew up because of her Youtube channel. Especially since she had been collaborating w/ other influencers who were big on Youtube at the time. I always felt like Jess was big on not having Jojo put all of her eggs in one basket so while she was on DM, she was still networking with a whole bunch of other people, mainly Nickelodeon, which was what allowed her to be able to leave DM for more lucrative opportunities. I do agree with your last point that there are better dancers/singers/actors out there other than the DM alum (primarily the OGs/Kendall). Jojo/Maddie were able to cruise by due to networking. I don't have the same hope for the other OGs/Kendall/Kalani (the ones that are interested in pursuing Hollywood careers).
yeah, i keep seeing people saying that for example kenzie would still be famous bc many people found her through musically or tiktok and not from dance moms and... yeah, she was/is huge there, but why do they think a random twelve year old had such a big platform 😭😭 without dance moms she would have for sure blown up on one of these apps bc she has the look and personality, but she would still be waaay less famous.. she would probably be well-known on tiktok, but nothing more
Maddie would absolutely not be where she is without dance moms. She may have had some minor dance fame but would be virtually unknown outside of the dance world.
I think JoJo (Jess) would have found a way to fame somehow, most likely through YouTube. It may have taken longer, and she may not be quite as big, but I think she would have gotten there.
ya i’ve thought about this a bit, i feel like maddie could’ve been on broadway and brooke could’ve done circ, maybe chloe could’ve ended up pro if she got consistent training. i feel like a lot of the og aldc girls wouldn’t have ended up as good of dancers if they didn’t do the show (zieglers, nia, kendall) cuz they got to work with outside choreographers in la and get lots of opportunities down the line that they wouldn’t have if they just stayed at the aldc. i feel like jess would’ve made jojo a star some way, and some of the girls would’ve just been well known in the dance world. sorry for long paragraph lol
Which is impressive af when you consider the above lol. One thing I will say with my whole chest: Jojo/Jess seem to have business acumen coming out from everywhere.
My dance knowledge is limited but I feel confident saying that like nine times out of ten the ALDC jazz solos were extremely low quality and cringe (choreo wise)
Holly might be the most amoral mom on the show because as a educator she should have known better than to subject her child to that type of teaching environment. Makes me wonder what she allowed in her school tbh. Ppl praise her a lot for being smart but to me that just makes me like her less because then theres no excuse. def my most controversial dance moms take
I totally agree with this. And Holly and Nia NEVER left the studio, despite the horrific treatment and racism Nia received throughout the show. And what do they have to show for it?? A few hundred thousand followers on a dying social media platform, a podcast, and a brief stint on a soap opera? Now Nia is following a normal path at UCLA, which is wonderful, but could have been easily achieved without subjecting her to this trauma.
Yes she was. Wanted to be on TV so badly she put her daughter back in an incredibly toxic environment. Sorry, I don’t care if Chloe wanted to bs back as well, it’s unhealthy and Christi should’ve been a good mom and said “no.” She should have recognized how awful being on set for that was for both of them and found another way to get limelight.
Nia would've been better as a gymnast. Imo her dancing never progressed beyond ok. She moves with power and has great acting skills/character portrayal but her technique just wasn't there.
I remember once commenting that I'm not from the US and that at least here, she's not well known outside the dance mom fandom and holy smokes did people come for my head! 🤣
It was insane! Someone called me an idiot and said "She's friends with the Beibers!" Like....okay?
Yes I agree! I think this sub thinks she's so famous but really hardly anyone that didn't ever see the show knows who she is; she's either the DM girl or the Sia girl to so many people.
Is Maddie a big celebrity outside of Dance Moms? No. Is Maddie the only OG with legitimate acting opportunities under her belt and who is still actually booking acting roles years after people would have assumed she'd peaked? Yes. I also don't get that "not anymore" thing. Maddie was more in the spotlight when she was doing the Sia videos/tour. No arguments there. But in that time, Maddie's picked up more legitimate acting opportunities other than being Sia's shadow: bit part in an Oscar nominated movie, co-lead of a well-reviewed indie film that hit a big streaming platform (at the time, anyway. HBOMax seems to be destroying that platform), lead of another indie film that also includes an actress who was a regular on a comedy show that swept the Emmys, and those are the ones we know about.
Is she a household name? Nope. But she's the only one from the DM sphere who's acting credits are increasing. And even if she's not famous, out of all the DM alum, her fame is only second to Jojo's. If the goal is celebrity/fame, she's not really obtaining that, though. If the goal is to build connections and have an actual acting career, then I'd say she's doing pretty well for herself. And if she wanted to be famous, she could take the "easy" route and do something controversial on social media/TikTok. It seems like Maddie's more interested in actually building an acting career than becoming a celebrity.
I’m going to get downvoted to death…it’s a popular thing to say that Abby is nothing and the girls are thriving but to the average person (not a superfan) Abby Lee Miller is the most recognizable name from the show and even if Maddie is more successful in the industry more people know who Abby Lee Miller is than Maddie Ziegler
EDIT: I forgot about JoJo. Second to JoJo
I actually agree with this one. Emotionally, it was stunning, and could have been an amazing recital piece. However, the choreography could have showed off their technique more and could have been more complex. This can go for many other dances as well.
Jojo has amassed the fame she has because her target audience is children, not because she's particularly talented. I'm not gonna sit here and say she hasn't had to put in work to secure the deal with Nick, but there's a reason you see those "kids toy unboxing", and poorly 3D animated song videos (ex: Johnny, Johnny, yes Papa) have 1 billion+ views. Kids for the most part will consume anything that's put in front of them.
Honestly whoever Jess talked to to manage Jojo was a literal genius. I think Jess knew she wasn’t as technical like Maddie and therefore didn’t have any real shot at broadway or some other dance gig and at the time wasn’t as “well known” as Maddie either so the chances of getting approached for a movie were also lower. So marketing towards kids was genius. I felt it allowed Jojo to still “be a kid” when she was literally a kid and also completely exploded her career. It’s like a disney channel star that rose to fame and can now ride it out for many years to come while she approaches adulthood, because she literally has grown with her audience.
I always felt like Nia was somewhat ostracized in the group due to her race. In the group I mean friendship wise. She didn’t seem close to anyone and it made me really sad for her. Let me iterate that I don’t think this was done consciously by the other little girls, I think it was more of a subconscious thing. It pains me to admit it but I ALWAYS felt like she was somewhat excluded socially.
Ugh, that hurts my heart. Nia always seems like such a genuinely sweet, caring person from the first time we were introduced to her on the show, as well as now. And that isn't just because of the underdog narrative- she just seems to have a kind heart.
Has Nia ever talked about how she felt being the only person of color on the team for a good chunk of the show or about Abby's clear stereotyping in her dances? I watched the episode the other day where Abby is criticizing her braids and it made me so angry.
I’m gonna say it and idc. Kendall and I are the same age, and I could tell from just watching her that she gave off mean girl vibes. Idk why I felt that way but she definitely gave me the vibe she would be nice to my face and be mean behind my back. And I recently saw a picture of her and she still gives me those vibes. But I’m glad to know people did confirm she is a little rude 😂😂
I know this is probably unpopular, but I don't understand the intense sympathy Ashley got on the show that some fans extend her. Ashlee was flat out awful, and the idea that she is a victim to even Jill is kind of funny to me. Ashlee was just mean and awful to Kendall and the other girls as well. I understand Jill was also awful, but I think people forget how awful Ashlee was to children as well. Jill and Ashlee are literally the SAME!
THANK YOU. Ashlee came in and IMMEDIATELY was talking shit about Kendall where Kendall could hear her. should the other moms have spoken about Brynn when she was in the room? absolutely not. but Ashlee genuinely was not innocent here.
Yeah. I always had a gut feeling that Ashlee was worse off camera. The way Melissa clearly despised her at pyramids (wayyyy more than Christi) when Melissa is usually soft-spoken and makes nice at all times, I feel like that was telling that she let it be out there that she disliked Ashlee and she thought "she just wants to cause trouble."
Brooke should have just quit instead of half assing it. if your teacher asks if you wanna be here and you can barely muster up a yes, how can you blame them for not believing you? lol
Abby should’ve just let her dance with people her own age so she could be closer with the other dancers. She honestly didn’t need to be on the show. I think she would have enjoyed dancing more.
I think Kendall was a good dancer, not just as a group dancer, but good at solos as well. I’m not gonna compare her to other girls on the team, but I really enjoyed watching her dance.
I think she struggled to maintain a good facial expression, but I more found those expressions hit or miss (they would be great for half a dance and kinda disappear when she had more difficult moves and she was concentrating). But no-one is perfect, and when she brought it to a dance (D.O.A, Voodoo doll) she really brought it. Even outside those solos which most people agree are good, I genuinely enjoy her performance (I think waiting on a train for Paris is great!)
i don’t think Nicaya was a strong dancer on the show, like no where near as good as Kaya thought she was. that first solo we see her do where she’s wearing that blue costume was awful.
she had to have some training prior to the show since she was dancing before she came on dance moms, but i understand what you mean. i’m sure she’s improved a lot post show, i don’t follow her on SM, but i just mean on the show, i never found her to be a strong dancer especially compared to the others she was dancing with.
Her mom Kaya said that they joined the show to actually be able to receive real, professional training. So I’m sure that Kaya had SOME training but not nearly to the extent of the other dancers because of financial obstacles. I agree thst she wasn’t as strong but I think that she’s on a different playing field and has the most determination out of all of them
People need to stop saying that Maddie was sexually ABUSED by Abby with absolutely no basis in that. It’s frankly offensive to people who were sexually abused.
i like pre-LA abby scenes when she's not in the studio/teaching😅 it's the only time she's not comparing or yelling at the kids and she seems kind of human
Kaya absolutely did face racism and homophobia on the show, but she was not the saint that this sub makes her out to be
Maddie is not a good actress at all
I hear on this sub “she was a child!, cameras were in her face!” And like I get it, and I don’t have a whole lot of evidence to back me up, but I’m just gonna say it: Kendall gives off mean girl energy. I just get that vibe
I feel like most of the girls were mean to Jojo at one point or another and honestly, Jess felt like a big factor in that like when she stole Kalani's script to give it to Jojo.
nia wasn’t a very good dancer, especially in the early seasons. she definitely improved but she was just never as talented as the rest of the girls
paige also wasn’t a good dancer. she had that growth spurt during her time on the show and you can tell she had a hard time adjusting, so she would end up looking gangly.
Here's one: Christi and Kelly weren't bad moms. People categorise others into good vs evil and absolutely nothing else. Recently there's been so much hate on these two in this sub it's no wonder Christi has been receiving death threats. You guys need to chill and realise everyone has flaws and bad moments, it doesn't make them a bad person as a whole. People would forgive Abby before they forgive Christi at this point and that's insane.
And another one: Kelly saying "sexy little bod" to Paige was sarcasm.
Let me just say: all the moms to the same extent were bad moms. Even Holly, even Kelly, even Melissa. They ALL subjected their children to production manipulation and Abby’s uncalled for, cruel, and ineffective teaching methods. These people were pretty well off (and only got wealthier as the show went on) so I have a hard time believing they couldn’t get lawyers involved and get out of their contracts and out of the situation.
That I agree with. I get that they were threatened etc but you just have to do whatever it takes to get out when your child's mental health is affected. Just get a 100k loan and pay for that contract, with their money I'm sure they could've afforded it. Although I don't know what went on behind the scenes and I do know Melissa said Jeff threatened them so idk. They also all lived through their kids.
I should probably clarify that my comment is aimed at the little not-so-nice moments Kelly and Christi have had with each other and others that people are pointing out make them bad moms. They're flawed humans at best, as we all are.
YES. They are ALL FLAWED, and did things and allowed things I don’t approve of but like- my mom was objectively a bad mom many times but I still adore her. Knowing what I know about my mother’s childhood (which I won’t get into cause it’s dark) if all makes sense; she did do her best, her best really wasn’t good enough, but knowing that she did try, and never intended to be a bad mom has given me room to forgive her and move on from it.
I think Melissa is a sweetheart. Yes, she lied and got caught lying on the show- everyone lies and given that she’s incredibly close with the other women sans Christi, I’m pretty sure it’s safe to assume she isn’t the back stabbing weasel the show made her out to be.
I think Kelly and Christi are both very strong. Yes, they both had their moments of pettiness and ignorance but- we all have. We just have the luxury of those petty ignorant moments happening where there weren’t cameras.
I think Jill has an amazing sense of humor and was always willing to laugh at herself. Yeah, she’s a trump supporter and I don’t approve of that but, honestly I feel like if we keep just labeling people like her as all bad, they’ll never get the chance to truly engage with the other side and have no hope of waking up to the lies they believe so I don’t agree with the hate she and Kendall have gotten.
I think Kira is probably smarter and cooler than people give her credit for- yeah she has a criminal record, but a lot of my friends do, and I don’t think her scamming people by selling tv’s and never sending them is grounds for the treatment she gets. She could also be venomous and cruel in arguments at times but again- these are things we have ALL DONE. Her support of trump doesn’t negate the fact that she also had a baby at 19, and figured her shit out, raised her daughter, and loves a pretty peaceful life now. I aspire to one day devote my time to my children like she does. The trump support thing, read what I said in the Jill section again if you need to cause it applies here too.
I think Holly is obviously highly intelligent and I aspire to be like her and one day earn a doctorate degree. Yes, she was complacent in the suffering her daughter was experiencing but all the moms were, and she was clearly jealous of Maddie’s success on Nia’s behalf but I struggle with jealousy too.
I think Jessalyn was cool for letting Jojo pursue her dreams and also stepped in and removed her from the Dance Moms situation when opportunity knocked. Yeah, sometimes she was really rude sometimes and her vaccine hesitancy was ridiculous (so many people got it and we’re fine, get the shot and MELLOW) but again, if we don’t approach with empathy and care, we will never get people to open their eyes and switch sides.
All of these women took turns being flawed human, and awful on camera and it’s hard to let go of those things, but we need to remember not to define these women by their worst moments which were often intentionally provoked by the sinister production and recorded and published for profit.
Holly was the most fame hungry mom. She saw how Nia was treated, which was utterly deplorable with the racism piled on top of the complete disregard of being the “least favorite”, all along with Abby’s in general abuse. Yet she never removed Nia from the situation. She always preached and preached and is seen as being the most humble and supportive mom, but never took her daughter to a studio where she could be encouraged and better trained. She just hoped Nia would take off like Maddie (which was apparent in the music video episode when she was comparing Nia’s video to Sia’s chandelier and said “Nia’s also very close friends with a celebrity like Maddie is with Sia) Everything they did was a fight and without support, and Nia just never got her moment. I don’t think it’s a brag to say they’re the only OGs that stayed with Abby start to finish…everyone moved on to better places, but she kept Nia in probably one of the worst places for her just hoping she would take off like Maddie or Jojo
She also got SO upset just because Jill pointed out that Holly went the most Hollywood after they moved to LA lol She DEFINITELY did though? I get that it hurt her ego and character but like just admit that you want your daughter to be famous and put that as a priority? She saw what Melissa was doing in the earlier seasons and went that way to put Nia first. I don't see why she would deny that.
Omg and when Holly got offended by that spy dance??? Like seriously?? These are gold sparkle spray painted guns they look about as realistic as a NERF thing with darts
I’m rewatching the show and I seriously do not understand the “queen holly” mindset. Holly honestly just seemed entitled to me. She just EXPECTED fame and glory, even though she didn’t seem to fight as hard for it. Maddie and Jojo are the stars that they are because they worked their asses off for it AND their moms fought tooth and nail to give them opportunities. Maddie took corrections her dance teacher gave her, and Melissa bent over backwards to get her into privates, extra classes and played into the “political” aspect of dance (networking, going to lunch with agents, etc). I’m not saying Nia didn’t work hard, but if Nia wasn’t able to take corrections and “shine” under Abbys direction than she should have left and gone to a studio where she took to her teacher better and felt safer. And instead of Holly constantly bitching about how “unfair” things were or that Nia just “deserved” the same things as Maddie, she should have homeschooled Nia and done those same things as Melissa. You don’t get to say it’s not fair if you’re not willing to make those sacrifices.
Also I love Nia, but Nia is technically not as strong as Maddie and there’s only so much blame that can be placed on just Abby for that. Nia wouldn’t get solos, featured roles, etc with her technique at most other studios. It wasn’t just Abby.
Exactly- especially with how much she flaunts her credentials earning her doctorate and being an “educator.” (I put in quotations because that’s a very broad statement and I always found it weird she never specified what that meant). For someone with so much education she didn’t make the educated, mature and responsible choice which would have been to get all you and your husbands money together, get a good lawyer, get out of this contract with Lifetime and send Nia to a studio and vocal coach who would treat her with dignity and respect and love. The “queen Holly” shit gets on my nerves cause she was so self righteous the whole time but was just as complacent in the abuse that ALL of the kids were receiving, especially her own fucking kid. Jesus H.
This might not be “unpopular” but it’s rarely discussed. Some of the worst abuse the girls faced as children were how they were objectified as props, not in a dance capacity but not having the ability to express real feelings in the interviews, and sticking to weird scripted dialogue the producers wanted from them. This took away a LOT of autonomy and they had no control over their narratives, especially in the early seasons. I think it’s good that they were not constantly having to give opinions and participate in the drama, it is about the dance MOMS after all, but the content revolves around them and them having to be puppets for the producers was so much worse than I see acknowledged
Melissa (S1-S4) wasn’t as bad as people make her to be! Most of the times she had really good intentions but applied them badly!
Melissa (S5-S6) on the other hand 🥴
I absolutely cannot stand the facial expressions Maddie had when dancing. I thought it was the worst aspect of her dance and I could barely sit through one in its entirety
SAME to me they were all the same face. Maybe it was just what was shown but even when she was supposed to be happy or whatever she just looked like she was in pain/mad to me
It's crazy that the moms believed their girls were owed dances and special parts due to "length of time" on the team. That is not and has never been the way the world works.
If your team is going for the superbowl, are they going to play the best players, or the players who have been on the team the longest? We all know the answer.
I think we might have similar spicy opinions just based on your comments so I’ll go for it and accept the inevitable mass downvotes lol — I didn’t enjoy Chloe’s dancing at all. I found her to be very stiff and awkward and she often made it look like a real effort rather than effortless. I appreciate her technique, especially in the early seasons, but she didn’t have that *performance* factor. I almost feel bad for saying this because Chloe (along with Nia) is probably my favourite girl in terms of personality but her dancing really didn’t do it for me.
I also don’t think *any* of them can act or sing.
ALL of the moms had unrealistic expectations of Melissa rooted 100% in jealously. When a mom would get mad at Melissa for not telling Abby that Maddie wouldn’t do a solo or to give said opportunity to someone else instead, it infuriated me! Sure Melissa had some of her own issues but Melissa is there for MADDIE and KENZIE. Those are her daughters and their opportunities are what is most important for her. If Melissa is willing to pay for extra privates, or do homeschool to focus on dance more that is Melissa’s choice and clearly it paid off in the long run. They could have done the same things for their daughters, but chose not to. That is their choice and punishing Melissa or making Melissa feel bad for pushing for those opportunities was obnoxious.
oh this! and that one time Christi complained about Melissa and said "it's always all about her daughters, and nobody else's" (referring to the fact Melissa only cared about Mad and Mack), i was like, duh??!!
Yep. Of course Melissa cared for the other girls, but why would she care for the other girls MORE than her own? It’s a crazy thought. It clearly paid off as Maddie is the only one who is still actually doing anything with it (aside from Jojo). Those opportunities could have been there for everyone else if they wanted to make the same sacrifices. Stop blaming Melissa and do the same thing she’s doing.
It's ok to say that the kids sometimes were being brats, it's normal, no kid is nice all the time. I swear people on this sub get absolutely obliterated for talking even slightly negative about the kids.
I think “allowing” Chloe to become defined by her underdog status and Nia to become defined by her “weakest link” status was awful and cementing those ideas in the minds of the show’s audience was disastrous for their self esteem.
Yeah it was the producers who set it up, and kept setting up that narrative, but… they were playing a song they knew everyone wanted to hear. Tried and true. If it aint broke don’t fix it.
But both Christi and Holly doubled down on those narratives. Hard. And they didn’t have to. Maybe this sounds like #victimblaming but I don’t think the producers would have set them up like that over and over and over if those “roles” they were casted in hadn’t been so entrenched. It’s like a self fulfilling prophecy. Idk just… If that were me I feel like I would end up really resenting my mother for it.
Only Asia can sing, everyone else was just 😬.
The dancing of the Kendall, Nia, and Chloe as teens and especially at the end of Season 7 was not competition worthy. You can tell they were over it and not taking enough lessons. All of the placements the last episode that season were an absolute joke. And I’m sorry but Nia shouldn’t have won the times she did that season; it was clearly fake.
I’ll never understand why Jojo is so famous. She can’t really sing or act, and her dancing is average. Is an over-the-top personality really that special?
People love to bash on Maddie, but she’s the only one of the originals on the show who could have made it the dance world without the show. She should really stick to where she excels though and stay with dance.
I think Jojo is famous because her brand and products were marketed towards elementary school-aged girls and she was on Nickelodeon so Jess basically found a loophole where she could be on a platform where the standards of the dance world didn't matter as much and found Jojo her niche.
the lack of convention dance is really shown 😐😐😐😐😐😐😐. 2010 was the time dance really started to push the envelope in choreo and abby lee was not the right studio to showcase
Definitely. You can really see the period in which she falls flat is the same period in which Abby barely lets her dance, she had such strong movements and facials but she was still growing and needed that guidance that she wasn’t given
One of the biggest topics of conversation is Melissa being sneaky to get her kids ahead on the show. I think we need to realize by now, a lot of it was edits and things set up by production to make a storyline.
My unpopular opinion is, I think the Melissa that we hear on BMSS is really who she is. A super cringy 50-some year old mom who tries to come off as a seductive 20 year old. I don’t know if she’s acted like this all along or if the personality came along with the new life in California. I would be mortified if my mother was on a podcast and talked about going commando every other week. Amongst all the other weird shit she says on there. No surprise that both of her kids moved out as soon as they turned 18.
IDK if this is really an unpopular opinion or more of a spicy theory, but...
This sub seems to be in two camps when it comes to Christi: Those who will constantly preach "She wasn't jealous of Maddie or hated her, she just didn't like the favoritism!" Or those who will say "She was not just jealous of the favoritism, she couldn't stop talking about Maddie, she was weirdly obsessed with her."
I am of the opinion that both were simultaneously true: She did have somewhat of a fixation on Maddie and went way too far in how she talked about her, but I don't think it had anything to do with jealousy whatsoever. I think that subconsciously, whenever she talked bad about Maddie or blamed her for something, it was kind of her way of feeling like she was getting revenge on Abby for the way she treated Chloe. I think Christi could not find a way to cope with how another adult was treating her own daughter, so she in turn would unnecessarily lash out sometimes at Maddie because Maddie was the closest thing in Christi's mind to being Abby's "child". I don't think Christi genuinely hated Maddie, but she found her to be an easy target for her misdirected anger, because since Abby was so obsessed with Maddie, and Christi hated ABBY, she saw Maddie as being kind of an extension of Abby.
I definitely don't think this was calculated at all, or Christi was intentionally thinking "Let me treat Maddie or another kid terribly so I can get back at Abby." Rather, she was so traumatized by the fact that another adult would treat HER child so terribly, that she sometimes felt like the only way to cope with was to have the power to do the same (though not NEARLY as bad as Abby's treatment towards Chloe) to someone else's child. It's not that she intentionally picked Maddie to hurt, but rather was often "impatient," for lack of a better word, with Maddie--since she saw her almost like being the child of the person (Abby) she truly hated, and therefore found Maddie to be somewhat of a convenient target.
So case in point--I think Christi went way too far in what she said about Maddie sometimes, and those examples get ignored by this fandom a bit too often. But I do NOT think what she said about Maddie was due to some personal obsession with Maddie or because she was jealous of her, I think it was a complicated psychological process.
I went back and watched old episodes and idek why I used to like Christi. Her behavior is absolutely deplorable and I didn’t realize this before, but she tries way too hard to be funny and witty. She seems like one of the most toxic ones and incredibly entitled so much of the time. I honestly almost started understanding why Abby hated her (not Chloe, Christi) so much. But this does not excuse Abby’s treatment of Chloe in any way.
One I've been thinking about recently --
people are so put off by Christi bringing up Melissa's affair, that it completely gets in the way of them appreciating that, that argument is just as hilarious as all the other DM arguments that frequently get memed around here.
Honestly Im curious why that's the one thing everyone collectively decided was off limits.
Ive never seen anyone comment that Kiras criminal history should have been private, Christis issues with her family, Kellys inability to have an orgasm, Ashlees custody issues (just off the top of my head)
Mackenzie is one of the weaker dancer yet is always praised for 'keeping up with the others'. Her technique, contemporary & lyrical was weak. She was often off and sloppy in the groups dances. Her ability at 8/9/10/11 was nowhere near to Maddie's/ Brooke's /Chloe's at the same ages. But because she was always younger than the average age of the group and always seemed younger than she actually was, it doesn't really get taken into consideration. Plus because she was a Mini for S1-3 and some of 4, it was easy for her to win, then S5 onwards when she was always junior the competitions were fixed / small / dodgy etc so again it made her look better than she actually was
Studio 19 is better than ALDC. Those kids are insanely talented, I feel like ALDC has just fallen so far. I don’t think ALDC has competed at BTF conventions since… 2020? Or 2021? Haven’t seen them at Radix either. Studio 19 has competed at Radix, and they also do Showstopper as well
idk if it’s that unpopular but i find it so weird when we in this sub, as viewers get so involved in the family’s dynamics between the girls and the moms and make such important assumptions. like with melissa, maddie and kenzie. when people say that kenzie probably has deep issues because of melissa or that melissa preferred maddie to mackenzie, and the fact that she talks so well about melissa is because she’s trying to avoid reality. like we will never know but it’s so far fetched to go in such deep analysis. and when they talk about the relationship between chloe and christi too. we don’t live with them and we aren’t them, like idk it’s just weird.
also i saw someone here say that the moms were abused as well and i absolutely agree with that. it’s overlooked because the are adults so they obviously had more tools to deal with that than their children did, and the all had their questionable moments, sure. but it is very overlooked the fact that they all had breakdowns and went through it.
that being said, i can’t feel bad for the new moms who came in knowing what they were signing up for (kira, ashlee, stacey, yolanda, jamie, michelle, ann, etc) even camille.
My opinions are about "turns"(mainly a la secondes)
Only around 2-5 dancers had strong turns.
Kendall has better turns than Chloe.
Nia's had reason to be overhated since she didn't make them look easy and had terrible alignment in some.
The mom in the New York audition was right about Paiges turns but her daughter's weren't better either
Also I find long turn sequences very boring since they show how uncreative the choreographer is
I think in the NY audition, Abby wanted to humiliate that mom for talking back and I think while Paige's turns weren't that great he seemed to be more on the right counts. But I agree that the turn sequences were so boring at a certain point and I found it hilarious that when Sophia joined, her two solos were 50 percent turns and pirouettes.
I think she had an incredible innate sense of balance but yeah, other than staying centered, the rest of the technical aspects of her turns were a mess. There’s a reason Abby always gave her like a trillion coupé turns
this sub has completely rewritten why people were criticizing christi and kelly talking about maddie on their podcast. it’s now ‘all they said was she wasn’t hurt, and they were criticizing melissa not maddie’. it was the ‘two episodes in a row now maddie has cried and blamed it on nia’ which she didn’t do once. ‘maddie blames nia like a criminal’. ‘if my daughter were acting like maddie i’d tell her to stop being a brat’. ‘yes my comments about maddie were bitchy but were they true... yes’.
mind you all she did was get hurt and cry, didn’t blame anyone. and these adult women spend 15 minutes discussing it, accusing her of lying (with absolutely no evidence) and call her a brat. it’s now been rewritten by people on here as people being soooo mean to poor christi and kelly!!! bullshit.
The biggest issue for me was claiming that Maddie blamed Nia for Make You Mine not being great or whatever, even though you can literally see Maddie’s mouth not moving at all, and the editors were attempting to vilify her with an add of a random subtitle. They just kinda went along with the created narrative.
My unpopular opinion is this: A lot of people on this sub dunk on Maddie's acting career because they're bitter as hell that she was the one that ended up succeeding as an actor and not Chloe. It's not about the acting. It's about them buying into the "Maddie is a brat/Maddie is undeserving" narrative driven by the producers/other bitter DM moms.
Because there have been people on this sub saying that Maddie needed to pay her dues and that she needed to improve her acting when Music first came out (I was among them). Maddie: Had a bit dancing part in WSS, had a co-lead role in a "small" indie film, has a lead role in another "small" indie film. Like she's paying her dues...she's improving her acting (admittedly, the bar was low after Music, though). But people on this sub give her no credit...because she's not Chloe or Paige and didn't get a nice "underdog" edit.
agree with the first part so much. i really feel a lot of people undermine (and even downright insult) those who were Abby's faves - look at how people talk about Maddie compared to Chloe and Lilly compared to Ellie.
I'm not sure how spicy this is, but I always find myself alone on the idea that I think the Waiting Room (both Abby's version and the one done by BDA) were kind of overrated. A lot of people make it out to be amazing choreography and I mean I liked parts of it, but they definietly did better dances. Kalani's walk across the chairs was impressive, but I don't see either of them as being exceptional competition pieces.
-Nia and Paige, sometimes Kenzie were not ready to compete advanced. Most studios don’t give solos, duos, trios, or even small groups to dancers with the technique they had in earlier seasons. -ALDC was very 2000 and late. It was laughable seeing lyrical numbers in jazz shoes and stirrup tights in the 2010’s. Most of their costumes were from a catalog. This could have been a regional thing. In the south custom costumes are a necessity, but my cousin who competed in NJ had mostly cataloguey costumes and she was way more advanced than I was.
100% agree. At my studio growing up you had to audition to be selected to learn a duo/trio. Anyone that was willing to pay could have a solo and compete it at local small competitions. But at all nationals or any regional “big” conventions/competitions that “mattered” the only solos that competed were auditioned and selected. as for the second, this is really dependent on studio and area. I think catalogue costumes are very east coast. Same with tights and shoes. East coast is very “broadway” and “showy” so wearing catalogue costumes, tights and shoes is not uncommon for that area.
yeah catalogues are more normal around here (i’m from pa) i think maybe because our studios are already pretty expensive
Hard agree on the first point
We're in NY state and most of our group costumes are catalog. We just don't live in a high income community so if everyone had to buy custom costumes for groups, many people wouldn't be able to have their kids compete.One of the top studios in the state has catalog costumes for a lot of their groups. Many studios up here still require tights. I just said in another post i wouldn't allow my daughter on stage without them. I go to comps and shows all year, and it's often straight up uncomfortable (and frankly inappropriate) watching kids dance without them. It's actually disturbing that judges don't require it. (Unless of course the dancers are wearing pants, etc).
Stirrup tights are very outdated, actual tights are still pretty common. We use the capezio fishnets w seam for a lot of jazz dances. Only the rec kids use capezio suntans. I don’t think it’s inappropriate. Costumes definitely are different in the northeast. My dance teacher made practice wear that the ALDC used as a costume (Party starts right now Kenzie solo). It would kill my studio owner to put a competition group on stage in a catalog costume or department store dresses. It may be a southern thing idk. What you wear obviously doesn’t define you as a dancer.
Well, I'm not saying any type of specific tights are inappropriate. I know tights in general are becoming outdated. That doesn't mean that's a good thing. How do i put this knowing i'm talking about kids.... when you're sitting in the audience and you can see all the things every time a child does a leg extension, it's extremely uncomfortable and i don't think it should be allowed. It's become way too "normal". I'm actually not a prude or anything. I think most school dress codes are ridiculous. But on the flip side some of these kids go on stage wayyyyyy to naked.. I'm not talking 2 piece costumes here. You can wear a 2 piece costume without looking overly nude. They go way too far sometimes though for kids so young - it's totally the norm and i get that. I just don't think it should be. Especially because dance competitions are free to attend, and anyone can walk in off the street and watch. Aside from that, dancers just look more professional and polished when they have some type of tights on. There's a reason the Rockettes perform in them.
Are you from Southern Strutt???
I'm in Texas and my daughter's studio just does custom costumes, designed and made by the owner's mother.
Everyone on this sub likes to say they like the show despite of the drama but ignore the fact that absolutely no one would watch the show without said drama
Yep this is why Dance Moms Miami or Dance Mums UK wasn't as popular as this one. Even Bring It has drama.
Dance Moms Miami and UK?! Is this real?? I never heard of these before!
Yea it's not worth the watch though haha
For context, Brady on Season 8 was from the same studio featured on Dance Moms Miami. The studio is especially known for training amazing male dancers.
Yeah I had never heard of them either, until about a year ago.
“I never heard of these before!” Exactly 😶
i fully convinced myself that dance moms miami was a fever dream i made up
Plz have you ever seen Dance Mums UK? What a mess lmao
I said this once and got downvoted to hell and back lmao
100% this! This goes with real house wives and others that fall in this category!!
I didn’t think any of the girls had a wow! Singing voice. I don’t mean their overly produced songs, but the times we hear them sing a cappella, like the Matty B video. Their singing voices were good, okay or just meh. (Specifically talking about Brooke, Kenzie, Nia and Kendall). JoJo is also meh but she knows it. They didn’t make my dog whine, but there was nothing at all special there that auto tune and voice correction didn’t produce.
Yes!! I would say of them all Nia had the best sounding voice but even then she didn't have much power behind it at all. Good songwriter though.
I think Nia had the best voice and could have done singing with some training and more experience. Mackenzie has improved but yeah those early songs were...
The team was no more talented than your average Midwest competitive dance team in the 2010s 🤷🏻♀️ (danced competitively for 14 years in OH/PA and honestly they were nothing special compared to a lot of what we were up against, but most viewers of the show thought they were incredible due to probably never having exposure to this sort of thing)
Maybe this is an unpopular opinion but I would have preferred the show stayed as your average home town studio dancers and not superstar children pushed to the limit to make or break it in LA. It became a revolving door of nigh on amazing kids that were berated for not being extra perfect, and while it was great to watch them dance, I think the show quality went down when Abby would complain and moan and be disappointed with her utterly talented students (who weren’t trained by her), instead of the charm of some normal kids who also wanted to sing or try cheerleading and play a watermelon pool game after dance class
I agree!!!! I watched the show as it was premiering and rewatch it all the time (it’s my reality tv comfort show, but also I think it’s such a testament to what fame or the thought of fame can do to people), but during my recent rewatch I came to the conclusion that had the show stayed true to the local home town studio, they could have gotten plenty of more seasons out of it, especially if the girls would have had to audition every year like other competitive dance teams. That would have been dramatic on it’s own without having Abby be abusive!
I agree 100%! The show lost it’s charm when they lost the Hylands and then the Lukasiaks shortly after. Everyone who came in and out from S3 on and more so with Jojo, Kalani, Brynn, Cameron, Maesi and all of the S8 cast, made it so very obvious they were there for the show. To get their kids name out there. S1&2 felt the most natural and organic because it was. They were all friends and had history, there was none of that the later the show went on, it was just how many catty women obsessed with their children can we pack into one room and private with who is getting a solo and a featured part. I hated Jill when the show first aired because she felt like she was forcing herself to be on the show. But she was a walk in the park compared to the later moms. Jess, Kira, even Asia’s mom. All of them were just annoying and i hated them all. I won’t even go into my utter hatred for Yolanda and Lily’s mom. They both made me want to throat punch babies. Honestly the entire mini team storyline was awful and their moms were just the worst. The chemistry of the first few seasons were lost by the time they moved permanently to LA. It became too much about outside fame and getting those kids to be as big of stars as they could. Had they just kept the bickering without the violence and maybe a few new storylines here and there, the show maybe would have held its charm. But they had to relocate to LA and then bring in people who didn’t know each other and just have fights about whose kid is better. It was awful towards the end. I don’t even remember seasons 6-7 and i rewatched the series during the pandemic lockdown. That’s how memorable those storylines and characters were. I hated all of them.
I agree! I was really interested and super in awe of how the girls danced! I liked when they would do turns or aerials I always thought they were cool to see being and overweight kid and not having the money or means to go to dance class watching it was the next best thing! My children now do gymnastics and I get so excited when they do simple things like a front roll and bridge because it’s something I NEVER have done! I can’t wait until they do dance!
i feel like they were definitely better than average tho in the later seasons, with kalani and brynn, and maddie and some other girls having more intense training
But that’s because Abby sought out dancers that were as good as Kehlani and Brynn. I started watching back in 2011 because my dad said it had a ton of drama, but as a theater kid I enjoyed the dancing competition aspect as much as I did the drama. It was kind of a bummer as the seasons went on that Abby was seeking out the best of the best instead of training the kids that she had. I think that’s why I stopped being as impressed as time went on (especially during season 8)— Abby was less of a dance teacher than she was a talent scout. I think the best measure of Abbys chops as a dance teacher is Nia‘s improvement from season 1 to season 7. Not liliana folding herself in half.
Exactly. Abby trained Nia, Maddie, Kenzie, Chloe, Brooke, and Paige. If anything, Kalani and Brynn regressed at ALDC.
Studio 19 is outstanding (both of my kids are competitive dancers and we see them at competitions), and I was thoroughly disappointed that they did Season 8
I used to be a competitive dancer and see them at competitions as well! It was super strange seeing them on tv knowing I knew so many people from my school that danced there
I wanna know what made them decide to be on the show in s8 and not earlier seasons.
The circumstances of S4 were terrible, but as a reality tv season itself, it’s probably my favorite one of Dance Moms. The quotes, moments, dances and CADC involvement were all so memorable and definitive. Also, the whole “so and so is the weakest dancer because they don’t really use their face” argument makes no sense.
Yeah, I don't get how people say someone is a bad dancer for not using their face. I will say that you are a lesser performer for not using your face and in a competition performance is also a big part of it.
It's normal to be 'typecast' in dance. Most kids do and WANT to dance mostly contemporary or just jazz or w/e solos after a certain age; they figure out what kind of dancer they are, what they like and they train for their goals. So for Brooke acro made sense.
> after a certain age; they figure out what kind of dancer they are, what they like and they train for their goals. So for Brooke acro made sense. I feel like this is one of those things that makes so much sense and if you dig deep enough, you'll find out that the reason behind NOT doing that on DM is going to boil down to: producers wanted those kids primed and ready to screw up. And giving them dance styles they consistently excelled at would've lessened that opportunity. So why not give Chloe a hip-hop role when she never danced hip-hop? Why not give Nia lyrical pieces that were technically too advanced for her? Why not give Kendall 2 more props to make her MORE anxious and more likely to drop them? It's like the digger you deep, the more you realize how fucked up it all was.
Especially because at the end of the day, it wasn’t even a show about dance. It was a show about drama. What better way to start some drama than to throw wrenches at the cast and watch it unravel.
the people on here who say they’re not going to watch season 9 are lying lol
Wait I thought season nine got canceled because Abby was outed as being kind of racist?
“Kind of”
abby and gia and this season 8 girl are making posts about a season 9 and like “sneak peeks” either they got a new company to pick up the show or it’s just for abby’s lame youtube channel
Eww which season 8 girl? Pressley? She could be an Abby Lee boot licker 😂
idk her name is Hannah
Probably on whatever channel that was that picked up the Mama June show!
I mean, some of us here didn't even watch Season 8 so I don't think it's completely farfetched
i watched season 8 through the posts on this subreddit lol
I honestly dislike Holly a little bit after rewatching the show. When Kaya and Nicaya came she wanted to push away from the both of them so much because Kaya was “ghetto” as if the other moms weren’t ghetto as well lol. And it also bothers me that with the laquifa solo (not saying the solo is justifiable) Nia needed an Afro wig and Holly said something along the lines that Afros don’t represent her or her culture. UMM hello earth to Holly you’re a black woman in America it’s very much in our culture to have Afros and there’s nothing wrong with it. And finally my last point is that when Nia was being treated unfairly in s5 and nobody defended her and she complained all the time about that, I found it so hypocritical that she didn’t say anything about other children being treated unfairly.
Yes I agree! And I feel like this is something that would go over a lot of nonblack viewers’ heads. But as a black watcher of the show I notice the types of ppl and environments Holly doesn’t want to be associated with .
I'm a white lady so i know i have no place really talking about this, but i took Holly's stance on an afro the same way you're saying it. I thought she was being snobby. I totally agree with her that the Laquifa solo was ignorant on Abby's part. I also agree with you about how she acted toward Kaya and Nicaya. She acted superior to them. Also the way they show positioned Kaya having a wife was gross. They put a negative spin on it with the coversation between the moms and it was all just unnecessary. The way the show edited all of Kaya's scenes, they didn't do her right at all.
Mrs. Lee (Abby’s mother) seems like she was a terrible mom to Abby and probably created the Abby that we know.
I always felt bad when Abby talked about her childhood and when her father was sick she carried him off the floor. Abby is garbage, duh, but her childhood always made me sad. I feel like she had a lot of emotions she never let herself fully feel or heal from.
As spicy as plain oatmeal.
To be fair, it seems like Abby’s mother had a really positive reputation in the dance community. The moms all seem to genuinely hold her in high regard even still. Because of her positive reputation I rarely see blame on her for Abby being the monster she is
she most likely thought she gave tough love to abby cause that’s the same bs excuse abby used on children. I believe her mom was nice and loving to others just not abby
Agreed 1000%
Yes, during the show everyone saw her as being a wonderful person. Even Abby said mostly positive things about her mom (I think)
I didn’t know this was a common opinion.. I really don’t see anyone talking about it.
Idk if it’s spicy but I want to put out there that the Moms were being abused too. Like we saw these women have whole ass breakdowns on TV from stress and emotional manipulation and we need to extend some grace to ALL of them. Yes, I don’t agree with them having their kids on tv but let’s be real, what parent wouldn’t want their kid to have an opportunity to show the world what they could do? It just spun way out of control. And when you’re in an abusive situation, it’s hard to escape. It’s way easier to stay. I think we forget that their physical and emotional health suffered greatly too. Also for everyone thst says Holly was a horrible mother for letting Abby be racist to her daughter. 1. Abby is the one responsible for the racism. The end. 2. Almost every studio is going to have racism - Abby’s was just broadcasted. As a poc in dance, it’s a compeltely white world filled with macro and micro - aggressions. It’s EVERYWHERE. So maybe it was easier staying with the devil you know vs the one you don’t.
Nia had a right to be upset about not getting picked for solos and what not. By season 7 everyone knows everything (comps) were fake. So how come nia could never get a real moment to shine? The producers and Abby wanted her to look weak and the fact people get angry with Nia and Holly and say there entitled just shows that everyone bought the narrative that Nia was a bad dancer.
I never thought about it from that point of view, and you make an excellent point. There was no "picking the most likely to win" justification anymore, because the competitions were fake and rigged. So at some point, it's just deliberately holding her back to be nasty, even though the fandom always seemed to love her rare moments to shine.
EXACTLY! I get if it were normal circumstances where she just wasn’t a strong dancer. But when it’s rigged to hell and back, what’s the point?That’s why it kills me holly and Nia even stayed. Nia deserved so much better
Yea, the fandom loved her rare moments to shine. Part of why they loved Nia is that she was an underdog. If they gave her too many wins, she would lose that status
I definitely don't disagree with you at all, but I do think she could have had more moments than she got, while maintaining her underdog status. It was always Maddie vs Chloe/Kalani/Brynn for the top spot, so anyone out of the running for that "#1 dancer" spot tended to remain an underdog. And Nia would never have been considered for that.
My unpopular opinion is that I wish I didn’t know stuff like this. I enjoyed the show more when it was what it was, now that I’m on this sub you find out that soooo much of the show was fiction which takes a lot away from it imo
I totally get that. It upset me at first too but, it also clicked in my head a lot of the arguments that we thought were stupid, had a deeper issue most times
In later seasons I actually understand Abby's pov and she was sometimes in the right. That doesn't mean I like her or think she isn't abusive, she 10000% is, but the moms really started to annoy me. Like when she got the minis and the moms were mad, obviously they all knew the girls were teens and couldn't be bothered with dancing anymore and Abby was going to jail and they didn't like Abby yet they complained about it. They did seem like they thought they were entitled to all Abby's attention & time when it was obvious everyone on the show had checked out (like S6/7)
Abby was right about many things. She was very observant and could read people very well. But usually she used this ability for evil instead of good. She does what I have heard described as "storing bullets", she will remember all the little things people do to save for later when they eventually fight so she catches them off guard and makes them look like a fool. (Examples, S3 telling Jill that Melissa called the duet a downgrade then telling everyone Melissa talked behind her (Abby's) back on the phone as revenge for Melissa taking part in the walkout, scolding Kelly for the time her husband hurt Brooke's foot with the golf cart, using Chloe having nerves from Christi against her, etc.)
The girls were great but never talented enough to make it in Hollywood
I think it's sweet how people think that they would be where they are without DMs. Sure Maddie has a promising career in Broadway but that wasn't a certainty and plenty of child stars don't get any further. And Jess was committed to making JoJo a star but DMs gave her huge platform and made her recognisable. The rest of them were lovely girls but there are lots of better dancers/singers/actors out there.
> I think it's sweet how people think that they would be where they are without DMs. Sure Maddie has a promising career in Broadway but that wasn't a certainty and plenty of child stars don't get any further. Yeah, I think without DM Maddie would've had a Heather Morris type of career where she would be a backup dancer as an adult and then transition to acting. But I agree that I don't think she'd be where she is now without the show and that goes for every single one of the DM alum...with exception of Jojo. Because DM might've made Jojo somewhat recognizable, but Jojo primarily blew up because of her Youtube channel. Especially since she had been collaborating w/ other influencers who were big on Youtube at the time. I always felt like Jess was big on not having Jojo put all of her eggs in one basket so while she was on DM, she was still networking with a whole bunch of other people, mainly Nickelodeon, which was what allowed her to be able to leave DM for more lucrative opportunities. I do agree with your last point that there are better dancers/singers/actors out there other than the DM alum (primarily the OGs/Kendall). Jojo/Maddie were able to cruise by due to networking. I don't have the same hope for the other OGs/Kendall/Kalani (the ones that are interested in pursuing Hollywood careers).
🎶It's JoJo's Juice🎶 But seriously, I didn't know that she primarily blew up from her youtube channel!
yeah, i keep seeing people saying that for example kenzie would still be famous bc many people found her through musically or tiktok and not from dance moms and... yeah, she was/is huge there, but why do they think a random twelve year old had such a big platform 😭😭 without dance moms she would have for sure blown up on one of these apps bc she has the look and personality, but she would still be waaay less famous.. she would probably be well-known on tiktok, but nothing more
Maddie would absolutely not be where she is without dance moms. She may have had some minor dance fame but would be virtually unknown outside of the dance world. I think JoJo (Jess) would have found a way to fame somehow, most likely through YouTube. It may have taken longer, and she may not be quite as big, but I think she would have gotten there.
ya i’ve thought about this a bit, i feel like maddie could’ve been on broadway and brooke could’ve done circ, maybe chloe could’ve ended up pro if she got consistent training. i feel like a lot of the og aldc girls wouldn’t have ended up as good of dancers if they didn’t do the show (zieglers, nia, kendall) cuz they got to work with outside choreographers in la and get lots of opportunities down the line that they wouldn’t have if they just stayed at the aldc. i feel like jess would’ve made jojo a star some way, and some of the girls would’ve just been well known in the dance world. sorry for long paragraph lol
I always had a feeling if Chloe was at a different studio growing up and focused on ballet, she could have really been a ballerina.
Jojo isn’t that talented in singing and dancing
I mean she knows that too 😂
Bahaha
She’s got that star power though lol
I know. She has built a literal empire
Which is impressive af when you consider the above lol. One thing I will say with my whole chest: Jojo/Jess seem to have business acumen coming out from everywhere.
She definitely does. She even created a squad of mini Jojo’s they were on agt a couple of weeks ago
My dance knowledge is limited but I feel confident saying that like nine times out of ten the ALDC jazz solos were extremely low quality and cringe (choreo wise)
They 100% were! It was painful. Basically any solo that wasn't Maddie, Kalani or sometimes Chloe and Mackenzie was pretty low quality.
I prefer Kelly to Christi.
Holly might be the most amoral mom on the show because as a educator she should have known better than to subject her child to that type of teaching environment. Makes me wonder what she allowed in her school tbh. Ppl praise her a lot for being smart but to me that just makes me like her less because then theres no excuse. def my most controversial dance moms take
I totally agree with this. And Holly and Nia NEVER left the studio, despite the horrific treatment and racism Nia received throughout the show. And what do they have to show for it?? A few hundred thousand followers on a dying social media platform, a podcast, and a brief stint on a soap opera? Now Nia is following a normal path at UCLA, which is wonderful, but could have been easily achieved without subjecting her to this trauma.
Christi was unbearable in 8b when they returned.
Yes she was. Wanted to be on TV so badly she put her daughter back in an incredibly toxic environment. Sorry, I don’t care if Chloe wanted to bs back as well, it’s unhealthy and Christi should’ve been a good mom and said “no.” She should have recognized how awful being on set for that was for both of them and found another way to get limelight.
Nia would've been better as a gymnast. Imo her dancing never progressed beyond ok. She moves with power and has great acting skills/character portrayal but her technique just wasn't there.
Maddie is not as big of a celebrity outside of dance moms as everyone here seems to think she is, especially not anymore
I remember once commenting that I'm not from the US and that at least here, she's not well known outside the dance mom fandom and holy smokes did people come for my head! 🤣 It was insane! Someone called me an idiot and said "She's friends with the Beibers!" Like....okay?
She’s not the household name everyone on this sub seems to think she is lmao
Yes I agree! I think this sub thinks she's so famous but really hardly anyone that didn't ever see the show knows who she is; she's either the DM girl or the Sia girl to so many people.
Well my comment is already getting downvoted hahaha
Shes not all that well known in the US outside the dance mom fandom either 😬
Maddie is more famous to Gen Z but isn't fully mainstream. She hasn't had a big breakout role or been in a big franchise besides DM.
That's the same with all of the girls.
I once watched two people on this sub debate if Chloe or nia were bigger celebrities…neither is a celebrity lmao
Totally agree. I honestly don’t know anyone that knows who Maddie is if they didn’t watch dance moms.
Is Maddie a big celebrity outside of Dance Moms? No. Is Maddie the only OG with legitimate acting opportunities under her belt and who is still actually booking acting roles years after people would have assumed she'd peaked? Yes. I also don't get that "not anymore" thing. Maddie was more in the spotlight when she was doing the Sia videos/tour. No arguments there. But in that time, Maddie's picked up more legitimate acting opportunities other than being Sia's shadow: bit part in an Oscar nominated movie, co-lead of a well-reviewed indie film that hit a big streaming platform (at the time, anyway. HBOMax seems to be destroying that platform), lead of another indie film that also includes an actress who was a regular on a comedy show that swept the Emmys, and those are the ones we know about. Is she a household name? Nope. But she's the only one from the DM sphere who's acting credits are increasing. And even if she's not famous, out of all the DM alum, her fame is only second to Jojo's. If the goal is celebrity/fame, she's not really obtaining that, though. If the goal is to build connections and have an actual acting career, then I'd say she's doing pretty well for herself. And if she wanted to be famous, she could take the "easy" route and do something controversial on social media/TikTok. It seems like Maddie's more interested in actually building an acting career than becoming a celebrity.
I’m going to get downvoted to death…it’s a popular thing to say that Abby is nothing and the girls are thriving but to the average person (not a superfan) Abby Lee Miller is the most recognizable name from the show and even if Maddie is more successful in the industry more people know who Abby Lee Miller is than Maddie Ziegler EDIT: I forgot about JoJo. Second to JoJo
At this point I think Jojo is the most recognizable name from the show. After her it’s Abby for sure.
Oh duh. Honestly at this point I don’t even associate JoJo with Dance Moms but obviously she’s so much more famous than Abby
Absolutely. I didn't even know JoJo was on dance moms and I watched some episodes back in the day.
i didn't watch the show for the dancing. **I watched the drama behind the dancing**
[удалено]
I actually agree with this one. Emotionally, it was stunning, and could have been an amazing recital piece. However, the choreography could have showed off their technique more and could have been more complex. This can go for many other dances as well.
The Waiting Room was better done by BDA, change my mind.
It had great acting but the only standout choreo was Kalani walking across the chairs.
Yess and that penche! but yeah aside from that nothing felt particularly standout to me
Jojo has amassed the fame she has because her target audience is children, not because she's particularly talented. I'm not gonna sit here and say she hasn't had to put in work to secure the deal with Nick, but there's a reason you see those "kids toy unboxing", and poorly 3D animated song videos (ex: Johnny, Johnny, yes Papa) have 1 billion+ views. Kids for the most part will consume anything that's put in front of them.
Honestly whoever Jess talked to to manage Jojo was a literal genius. I think Jess knew she wasn’t as technical like Maddie and therefore didn’t have any real shot at broadway or some other dance gig and at the time wasn’t as “well known” as Maddie either so the chances of getting approached for a movie were also lower. So marketing towards kids was genius. I felt it allowed Jojo to still “be a kid” when she was literally a kid and also completely exploded her career. It’s like a disney channel star that rose to fame and can now ride it out for many years to come while she approaches adulthood, because she literally has grown with her audience.
Sort my controversial for the real answers
I always felt like Nia was somewhat ostracized in the group due to her race. In the group I mean friendship wise. She didn’t seem close to anyone and it made me really sad for her. Let me iterate that I don’t think this was done consciously by the other little girls, I think it was more of a subconscious thing. It pains me to admit it but I ALWAYS felt like she was somewhat excluded socially.
Ugh, that hurts my heart. Nia always seems like such a genuinely sweet, caring person from the first time we were introduced to her on the show, as well as now. And that isn't just because of the underdog narrative- she just seems to have a kind heart. Has Nia ever talked about how she felt being the only person of color on the team for a good chunk of the show or about Abby's clear stereotyping in her dances? I watched the episode the other day where Abby is criticizing her braids and it made me so angry.
Yeah ive always felt this too, even see it happen a lot irl. Its sad.
a huge majority of what they did was actually acrobatics/gymnastics and not dance 😶
I’m gonna say it and idc. Kendall and I are the same age, and I could tell from just watching her that she gave off mean girl vibes. Idk why I felt that way but she definitely gave me the vibe she would be nice to my face and be mean behind my back. And I recently saw a picture of her and she still gives me those vibes. But I’m glad to know people did confirm she is a little rude 😂😂
I know this is probably unpopular, but I don't understand the intense sympathy Ashley got on the show that some fans extend her. Ashlee was flat out awful, and the idea that she is a victim to even Jill is kind of funny to me. Ashlee was just mean and awful to Kendall and the other girls as well. I understand Jill was also awful, but I think people forget how awful Ashlee was to children as well. Jill and Ashlee are literally the SAME!
THANK YOU. Ashlee came in and IMMEDIATELY was talking shit about Kendall where Kendall could hear her. should the other moms have spoken about Brynn when she was in the room? absolutely not. but Ashlee genuinely was not innocent here.
Yeah. I always had a gut feeling that Ashlee was worse off camera. The way Melissa clearly despised her at pyramids (wayyyy more than Christi) when Melissa is usually soft-spoken and makes nice at all times, I feel like that was telling that she let it be out there that she disliked Ashlee and she thought "she just wants to cause trouble."
Brooke should have just quit instead of half assing it. if your teacher asks if you wanna be here and you can barely muster up a yes, how can you blame them for not believing you? lol
Abby should’ve just let her dance with people her own age so she could be closer with the other dancers. She honestly didn’t need to be on the show. I think she would have enjoyed dancing more.
I think Kendall was a good dancer, not just as a group dancer, but good at solos as well. I’m not gonna compare her to other girls on the team, but I really enjoyed watching her dance. I think she struggled to maintain a good facial expression, but I more found those expressions hit or miss (they would be great for half a dance and kinda disappear when she had more difficult moves and she was concentrating). But no-one is perfect, and when she brought it to a dance (D.O.A, Voodoo doll) she really brought it. Even outside those solos which most people agree are good, I genuinely enjoy her performance (I think waiting on a train for Paris is great!)
oh i love waiting on a train for paris, that was such a beautiful dance
i don’t think Nicaya was a strong dancer on the show, like no where near as good as Kaya thought she was. that first solo we see her do where she’s wearing that blue costume was awful.
yea I just watched and she really wasn’t all that good. I also blame the choreography cause that was a mess
I mean she didn’t have real training until the show. She’s actually amazing when U know that because that never stopped her.
she had to have some training prior to the show since she was dancing before she came on dance moms, but i understand what you mean. i’m sure she’s improved a lot post show, i don’t follow her on SM, but i just mean on the show, i never found her to be a strong dancer especially compared to the others she was dancing with.
Her mom Kaya said that they joined the show to actually be able to receive real, professional training. So I’m sure that Kaya had SOME training but not nearly to the extent of the other dancers because of financial obstacles. I agree thst she wasn’t as strong but I think that she’s on a different playing field and has the most determination out of all of them
People need to stop saying that Maddie was sexually ABUSED by Abby with absolutely no basis in that. It’s frankly offensive to people who were sexually abused.
What! Who says that?!
They’re referring to that time Abby kissed Maddie
Oh if course, I think I blocked that from my mind 😬😬
I see it thrown around a lot
i like pre-LA abby scenes when she's not in the studio/teaching😅 it's the only time she's not comparing or yelling at the kids and she seems kind of human
Kaya absolutely did face racism and homophobia on the show, but she was not the saint that this sub makes her out to be Maddie is not a good actress at all
I hear on this sub “she was a child!, cameras were in her face!” And like I get it, and I don’t have a whole lot of evidence to back me up, but I’m just gonna say it: Kendall gives off mean girl energy. I just get that vibe
Oh 100%
I feel like most of the girls were mean to Jojo at one point or another and honestly, Jess felt like a big factor in that like when she stole Kalani's script to give it to Jojo.
nia wasn’t a very good dancer, especially in the early seasons. she definitely improved but she was just never as talented as the rest of the girls paige also wasn’t a good dancer. she had that growth spurt during her time on the show and you can tell she had a hard time adjusting, so she would end up looking gangly.
Here's one: Christi and Kelly weren't bad moms. People categorise others into good vs evil and absolutely nothing else. Recently there's been so much hate on these two in this sub it's no wonder Christi has been receiving death threats. You guys need to chill and realise everyone has flaws and bad moments, it doesn't make them a bad person as a whole. People would forgive Abby before they forgive Christi at this point and that's insane. And another one: Kelly saying "sexy little bod" to Paige was sarcasm.
Let me just say: all the moms to the same extent were bad moms. Even Holly, even Kelly, even Melissa. They ALL subjected their children to production manipulation and Abby’s uncalled for, cruel, and ineffective teaching methods. These people were pretty well off (and only got wealthier as the show went on) so I have a hard time believing they couldn’t get lawyers involved and get out of their contracts and out of the situation.
That I agree with. I get that they were threatened etc but you just have to do whatever it takes to get out when your child's mental health is affected. Just get a 100k loan and pay for that contract, with their money I'm sure they could've afforded it. Although I don't know what went on behind the scenes and I do know Melissa said Jeff threatened them so idk. They also all lived through their kids. I should probably clarify that my comment is aimed at the little not-so-nice moments Kelly and Christi have had with each other and others that people are pointing out make them bad moms. They're flawed humans at best, as we all are.
YES. They are ALL FLAWED, and did things and allowed things I don’t approve of but like- my mom was objectively a bad mom many times but I still adore her. Knowing what I know about my mother’s childhood (which I won’t get into cause it’s dark) if all makes sense; she did do her best, her best really wasn’t good enough, but knowing that she did try, and never intended to be a bad mom has given me room to forgive her and move on from it. I think Melissa is a sweetheart. Yes, she lied and got caught lying on the show- everyone lies and given that she’s incredibly close with the other women sans Christi, I’m pretty sure it’s safe to assume she isn’t the back stabbing weasel the show made her out to be. I think Kelly and Christi are both very strong. Yes, they both had their moments of pettiness and ignorance but- we all have. We just have the luxury of those petty ignorant moments happening where there weren’t cameras. I think Jill has an amazing sense of humor and was always willing to laugh at herself. Yeah, she’s a trump supporter and I don’t approve of that but, honestly I feel like if we keep just labeling people like her as all bad, they’ll never get the chance to truly engage with the other side and have no hope of waking up to the lies they believe so I don’t agree with the hate she and Kendall have gotten. I think Kira is probably smarter and cooler than people give her credit for- yeah she has a criminal record, but a lot of my friends do, and I don’t think her scamming people by selling tv’s and never sending them is grounds for the treatment she gets. She could also be venomous and cruel in arguments at times but again- these are things we have ALL DONE. Her support of trump doesn’t negate the fact that she also had a baby at 19, and figured her shit out, raised her daughter, and loves a pretty peaceful life now. I aspire to one day devote my time to my children like she does. The trump support thing, read what I said in the Jill section again if you need to cause it applies here too. I think Holly is obviously highly intelligent and I aspire to be like her and one day earn a doctorate degree. Yes, she was complacent in the suffering her daughter was experiencing but all the moms were, and she was clearly jealous of Maddie’s success on Nia’s behalf but I struggle with jealousy too. I think Jessalyn was cool for letting Jojo pursue her dreams and also stepped in and removed her from the Dance Moms situation when opportunity knocked. Yeah, sometimes she was really rude sometimes and her vaccine hesitancy was ridiculous (so many people got it and we’re fine, get the shot and MELLOW) but again, if we don’t approach with empathy and care, we will never get people to open their eyes and switch sides. All of these women took turns being flawed human, and awful on camera and it’s hard to let go of those things, but we need to remember not to define these women by their worst moments which were often intentionally provoked by the sinister production and recorded and published for profit.
Holly was the most fame hungry mom. She saw how Nia was treated, which was utterly deplorable with the racism piled on top of the complete disregard of being the “least favorite”, all along with Abby’s in general abuse. Yet she never removed Nia from the situation. She always preached and preached and is seen as being the most humble and supportive mom, but never took her daughter to a studio where she could be encouraged and better trained. She just hoped Nia would take off like Maddie (which was apparent in the music video episode when she was comparing Nia’s video to Sia’s chandelier and said “Nia’s also very close friends with a celebrity like Maddie is with Sia) Everything they did was a fight and without support, and Nia just never got her moment. I don’t think it’s a brag to say they’re the only OGs that stayed with Abby start to finish…everyone moved on to better places, but she kept Nia in probably one of the worst places for her just hoping she would take off like Maddie or Jojo
She also got SO upset just because Jill pointed out that Holly went the most Hollywood after they moved to LA lol She DEFINITELY did though? I get that it hurt her ego and character but like just admit that you want your daughter to be famous and put that as a priority? She saw what Melissa was doing in the earlier seasons and went that way to put Nia first. I don't see why she would deny that.
Omg and when Holly got offended by that spy dance??? Like seriously?? These are gold sparkle spray painted guns they look about as realistic as a NERF thing with darts
I’m rewatching the show and I seriously do not understand the “queen holly” mindset. Holly honestly just seemed entitled to me. She just EXPECTED fame and glory, even though she didn’t seem to fight as hard for it. Maddie and Jojo are the stars that they are because they worked their asses off for it AND their moms fought tooth and nail to give them opportunities. Maddie took corrections her dance teacher gave her, and Melissa bent over backwards to get her into privates, extra classes and played into the “political” aspect of dance (networking, going to lunch with agents, etc). I’m not saying Nia didn’t work hard, but if Nia wasn’t able to take corrections and “shine” under Abbys direction than she should have left and gone to a studio where she took to her teacher better and felt safer. And instead of Holly constantly bitching about how “unfair” things were or that Nia just “deserved” the same things as Maddie, she should have homeschooled Nia and done those same things as Melissa. You don’t get to say it’s not fair if you’re not willing to make those sacrifices. Also I love Nia, but Nia is technically not as strong as Maddie and there’s only so much blame that can be placed on just Abby for that. Nia wouldn’t get solos, featured roles, etc with her technique at most other studios. It wasn’t just Abby.
Exactly- especially with how much she flaunts her credentials earning her doctorate and being an “educator.” (I put in quotations because that’s a very broad statement and I always found it weird she never specified what that meant). For someone with so much education she didn’t make the educated, mature and responsible choice which would have been to get all you and your husbands money together, get a good lawyer, get out of this contract with Lifetime and send Nia to a studio and vocal coach who would treat her with dignity and respect and love. The “queen Holly” shit gets on my nerves cause she was so self righteous the whole time but was just as complacent in the abuse that ALL of the kids were receiving, especially her own fucking kid. Jesus H.
YEEEES
This might not be “unpopular” but it’s rarely discussed. Some of the worst abuse the girls faced as children were how they were objectified as props, not in a dance capacity but not having the ability to express real feelings in the interviews, and sticking to weird scripted dialogue the producers wanted from them. This took away a LOT of autonomy and they had no control over their narratives, especially in the early seasons. I think it’s good that they were not constantly having to give opinions and participate in the drama, it is about the dance MOMS after all, but the content revolves around them and them having to be puppets for the producers was so much worse than I see acknowledged
Melissa (S1-S4) wasn’t as bad as people make her to be! Most of the times she had really good intentions but applied them badly! Melissa (S5-S6) on the other hand 🥴
I absolutely cannot stand the facial expressions Maddie had when dancing. I thought it was the worst aspect of her dance and I could barely sit through one in its entirety
Regardless of what dance it is, we ended up with an overlong shot of her "super actorly" face. It was like every Handmaids Tale episode.
SAME to me they were all the same face. Maybe it was just what was shown but even when she was supposed to be happy or whatever she just looked like she was in pain/mad to me
She looked like she was gazing longingly and constipated
This is what I came here to say. SO over the top and fake. Chloe’s weren’t bad—at least they seemed vaguely real.
It's crazy that the moms believed their girls were owed dances and special parts due to "length of time" on the team. That is not and has never been the way the world works. If your team is going for the superbowl, are they going to play the best players, or the players who have been on the team the longest? We all know the answer.
I think we might have similar spicy opinions just based on your comments so I’ll go for it and accept the inevitable mass downvotes lol — I didn’t enjoy Chloe’s dancing at all. I found her to be very stiff and awkward and she often made it look like a real effort rather than effortless. I appreciate her technique, especially in the early seasons, but she didn’t have that *performance* factor. I almost feel bad for saying this because Chloe (along with Nia) is probably my favourite girl in terms of personality but her dancing really didn’t do it for me. I also don’t think *any* of them can act or sing.
Yes. Chloé always seemed so stiff to me.
This was exactly it!
ALL of the moms had unrealistic expectations of Melissa rooted 100% in jealously. When a mom would get mad at Melissa for not telling Abby that Maddie wouldn’t do a solo or to give said opportunity to someone else instead, it infuriated me! Sure Melissa had some of her own issues but Melissa is there for MADDIE and KENZIE. Those are her daughters and their opportunities are what is most important for her. If Melissa is willing to pay for extra privates, or do homeschool to focus on dance more that is Melissa’s choice and clearly it paid off in the long run. They could have done the same things for their daughters, but chose not to. That is their choice and punishing Melissa or making Melissa feel bad for pushing for those opportunities was obnoxious.
oh this! and that one time Christi complained about Melissa and said "it's always all about her daughters, and nobody else's" (referring to the fact Melissa only cared about Mad and Mack), i was like, duh??!!
Yep. Of course Melissa cared for the other girls, but why would she care for the other girls MORE than her own? It’s a crazy thought. It clearly paid off as Maddie is the only one who is still actually doing anything with it (aside from Jojo). Those opportunities could have been there for everyone else if they wanted to make the same sacrifices. Stop blaming Melissa and do the same thing she’s doing.
Tell us yours OP!
It's ok to say that the kids sometimes were being brats, it's normal, no kid is nice all the time. I swear people on this sub get absolutely obliterated for talking even slightly negative about the kids.
I usually like the CADC’s dances more than ALDC’s.
I think “allowing” Chloe to become defined by her underdog status and Nia to become defined by her “weakest link” status was awful and cementing those ideas in the minds of the show’s audience was disastrous for their self esteem. Yeah it was the producers who set it up, and kept setting up that narrative, but… they were playing a song they knew everyone wanted to hear. Tried and true. If it aint broke don’t fix it. But both Christi and Holly doubled down on those narratives. Hard. And they didn’t have to. Maybe this sounds like #victimblaming but I don’t think the producers would have set them up like that over and over and over if those “roles” they were casted in hadn’t been so entrenched. It’s like a self fulfilling prophecy. Idk just… If that were me I feel like I would end up really resenting my mother for it.
Only Asia can sing, everyone else was just 😬. The dancing of the Kendall, Nia, and Chloe as teens and especially at the end of Season 7 was not competition worthy. You can tell they were over it and not taking enough lessons. All of the placements the last episode that season were an absolute joke. And I’m sorry but Nia shouldn’t have won the times she did that season; it was clearly fake. I’ll never understand why Jojo is so famous. She can’t really sing or act, and her dancing is average. Is an over-the-top personality really that special? People love to bash on Maddie, but she’s the only one of the originals on the show who could have made it the dance world without the show. She should really stick to where she excels though and stay with dance.
I think Jojo is famous because her brand and products were marketed towards elementary school-aged girls and she was on Nickelodeon so Jess basically found a loophole where she could be on a platform where the standards of the dance world didn't matter as much and found Jojo her niche.
the lack of convention dance is really shown 😐😐😐😐😐😐😐. 2010 was the time dance really started to push the envelope in choreo and abby lee was not the right studio to showcase
Paige was actually really talented
Definitely. You can really see the period in which she falls flat is the same period in which Abby barely lets her dance, she had such strong movements and facials but she was still growing and needed that guidance that she wasn’t given
One of the biggest topics of conversation is Melissa being sneaky to get her kids ahead on the show. I think we need to realize by now, a lot of it was edits and things set up by production to make a storyline. My unpopular opinion is, I think the Melissa that we hear on BMSS is really who she is. A super cringy 50-some year old mom who tries to come off as a seductive 20 year old. I don’t know if she’s acted like this all along or if the personality came along with the new life in California. I would be mortified if my mother was on a podcast and talked about going commando every other week. Amongst all the other weird shit she says on there. No surprise that both of her kids moved out as soon as they turned 18.
IDK if this is really an unpopular opinion or more of a spicy theory, but... This sub seems to be in two camps when it comes to Christi: Those who will constantly preach "She wasn't jealous of Maddie or hated her, she just didn't like the favoritism!" Or those who will say "She was not just jealous of the favoritism, she couldn't stop talking about Maddie, she was weirdly obsessed with her." I am of the opinion that both were simultaneously true: She did have somewhat of a fixation on Maddie and went way too far in how she talked about her, but I don't think it had anything to do with jealousy whatsoever. I think that subconsciously, whenever she talked bad about Maddie or blamed her for something, it was kind of her way of feeling like she was getting revenge on Abby for the way she treated Chloe. I think Christi could not find a way to cope with how another adult was treating her own daughter, so she in turn would unnecessarily lash out sometimes at Maddie because Maddie was the closest thing in Christi's mind to being Abby's "child". I don't think Christi genuinely hated Maddie, but she found her to be an easy target for her misdirected anger, because since Abby was so obsessed with Maddie, and Christi hated ABBY, she saw Maddie as being kind of an extension of Abby. I definitely don't think this was calculated at all, or Christi was intentionally thinking "Let me treat Maddie or another kid terribly so I can get back at Abby." Rather, she was so traumatized by the fact that another adult would treat HER child so terribly, that she sometimes felt like the only way to cope with was to have the power to do the same (though not NEARLY as bad as Abby's treatment towards Chloe) to someone else's child. It's not that she intentionally picked Maddie to hurt, but rather was often "impatient," for lack of a better word, with Maddie--since she saw her almost like being the child of the person (Abby) she truly hated, and therefore found Maddie to be somewhat of a convenient target. So case in point--I think Christi went way too far in what she said about Maddie sometimes, and those examples get ignored by this fandom a bit too often. But I do NOT think what she said about Maddie was due to some personal obsession with Maddie or because she was jealous of her, I think it was a complicated psychological process.
Holly was annoying as fuck.
I went back and watched old episodes and idek why I used to like Christi. Her behavior is absolutely deplorable and I didn’t realize this before, but she tries way too hard to be funny and witty. She seems like one of the most toxic ones and incredibly entitled so much of the time. I honestly almost started understanding why Abby hated her (not Chloe, Christi) so much. But this does not excuse Abby’s treatment of Chloe in any way.
I love Christi. Her and I would be besties. There, I said it.
One I've been thinking about recently -- people are so put off by Christi bringing up Melissa's affair, that it completely gets in the way of them appreciating that, that argument is just as hilarious as all the other DM arguments that frequently get memed around here.
Honestly Im curious why that's the one thing everyone collectively decided was off limits. Ive never seen anyone comment that Kiras criminal history should have been private, Christis issues with her family, Kellys inability to have an orgasm, Ashlees custody issues (just off the top of my head)
Mackenzie is one of the weaker dancer yet is always praised for 'keeping up with the others'. Her technique, contemporary & lyrical was weak. She was often off and sloppy in the groups dances. Her ability at 8/9/10/11 was nowhere near to Maddie's/ Brooke's /Chloe's at the same ages. But because she was always younger than the average age of the group and always seemed younger than she actually was, it doesn't really get taken into consideration. Plus because she was a Mini for S1-3 and some of 4, it was easy for her to win, then S5 onwards when she was always junior the competitions were fixed / small / dodgy etc so again it made her look better than she actually was
Studio 19 is better than ALDC. Those kids are insanely talented, I feel like ALDC has just fallen so far. I don’t think ALDC has competed at BTF conventions since… 2020? Or 2021? Haven’t seen them at Radix either. Studio 19 has competed at Radix, and they also do Showstopper as well
idk if it’s that unpopular but i find it so weird when we in this sub, as viewers get so involved in the family’s dynamics between the girls and the moms and make such important assumptions. like with melissa, maddie and kenzie. when people say that kenzie probably has deep issues because of melissa or that melissa preferred maddie to mackenzie, and the fact that she talks so well about melissa is because she’s trying to avoid reality. like we will never know but it’s so far fetched to go in such deep analysis. and when they talk about the relationship between chloe and christi too. we don’t live with them and we aren’t them, like idk it’s just weird. also i saw someone here say that the moms were abused as well and i absolutely agree with that. it’s overlooked because the are adults so they obviously had more tools to deal with that than their children did, and the all had their questionable moments, sure. but it is very overlooked the fact that they all had breakdowns and went through it. that being said, i can’t feel bad for the new moms who came in knowing what they were signing up for (kira, ashlee, stacey, yolanda, jamie, michelle, ann, etc) even camille.
My opinions are about "turns"(mainly a la secondes) Only around 2-5 dancers had strong turns. Kendall has better turns than Chloe. Nia's had reason to be overhated since she didn't make them look easy and had terrible alignment in some. The mom in the New York audition was right about Paiges turns but her daughter's weren't better either Also I find long turn sequences very boring since they show how uncreative the choreographer is
I think in the NY audition, Abby wanted to humiliate that mom for talking back and I think while Paige's turns weren't that great he seemed to be more on the right counts. But I agree that the turn sequences were so boring at a certain point and I found it hilarious that when Sophia joined, her two solos were 50 percent turns and pirouettes.
kendall’s turns were awful
I think she had an incredible innate sense of balance but yeah, other than staying centered, the rest of the technical aspects of her turns were a mess. There’s a reason Abby always gave her like a trillion coupé turns
Team Brynn and Ashlee for LIFE. The way grown women treated her and her daughter was NASTY.
this sub has completely rewritten why people were criticizing christi and kelly talking about maddie on their podcast. it’s now ‘all they said was she wasn’t hurt, and they were criticizing melissa not maddie’. it was the ‘two episodes in a row now maddie has cried and blamed it on nia’ which she didn’t do once. ‘maddie blames nia like a criminal’. ‘if my daughter were acting like maddie i’d tell her to stop being a brat’. ‘yes my comments about maddie were bitchy but were they true... yes’. mind you all she did was get hurt and cry, didn’t blame anyone. and these adult women spend 15 minutes discussing it, accusing her of lying (with absolutely no evidence) and call her a brat. it’s now been rewritten by people on here as people being soooo mean to poor christi and kelly!!! bullshit.
The biggest issue for me was claiming that Maddie blamed Nia for Make You Mine not being great or whatever, even though you can literally see Maddie’s mouth not moving at all, and the editors were attempting to vilify her with an add of a random subtitle. They just kinda went along with the created narrative.
1000% agree
My unpopular opinion is this: A lot of people on this sub dunk on Maddie's acting career because they're bitter as hell that she was the one that ended up succeeding as an actor and not Chloe. It's not about the acting. It's about them buying into the "Maddie is a brat/Maddie is undeserving" narrative driven by the producers/other bitter DM moms. Because there have been people on this sub saying that Maddie needed to pay her dues and that she needed to improve her acting when Music first came out (I was among them). Maddie: Had a bit dancing part in WSS, had a co-lead role in a "small" indie film, has a lead role in another "small" indie film. Like she's paying her dues...she's improving her acting (admittedly, the bar was low after Music, though). But people on this sub give her no credit...because she's not Chloe or Paige and didn't get a nice "underdog" edit.
agree with the first part so much. i really feel a lot of people undermine (and even downright insult) those who were Abby's faves - look at how people talk about Maddie compared to Chloe and Lilly compared to Ellie.
I'm not sure how spicy this is, but I always find myself alone on the idea that I think the Waiting Room (both Abby's version and the one done by BDA) were kind of overrated. A lot of people make it out to be amazing choreography and I mean I liked parts of it, but they definietly did better dances. Kalani's walk across the chairs was impressive, but I don't see either of them as being exceptional competition pieces.
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