When it comes to the titans of reality television, there is no one quite like the incomparable Abby Lee Miller. While some students and their parents lived in complete fear of the decorated choreographer, fans lived for everything she did on screen. Rising to prominence through eight seasons of Dance Moms, she cemented herself as one of the prominent faces in the world of dance.
When her time on Dance Moms came to an end, fans clamored for more. Despite drastic changes in her life, a serendipitous opportunity arose that brought Abby back to reality television. Teaming up with Brandon Studios, Abby Lee Miller returned in a new series, Mad House. Pairing Dance Moms with Big Brother, Lee Miller invited ambitious dancers into her home as they battle it out for a chance to be crowned dance captain. After a high-stakes first season, Mad House is returning, and Abby Lee Miller couldn’t be more excited.
In addition to celebrating a brand-new season of her series, Lee Miller discusses the current world of dance, the continued success of her students in the professional world, and the status of that musical we all want to see, Lee Miller isn’t holding anything back. “For me, I just always felt that if my kids make it through me, right, they grew up in my studio, in my building, doing my thing, there isn’t a choreographer, a producer, anybody out there in the entire world that’s going to ruffle their feathers or make them cry or make them second guess themselves because I trained them. And they are going to stand there with poise. They’re going to take it. They’re going to let it roll right off their shoulders while the other people choke,” the TV legend said.
Abby Lee Miller Breaks Down the Problems With Dance Today

Image via Brandon TV

COLLIDER: I am ready to go. If you’re ready,
ABBY LEE MILLER: I can’t see myself, so I gotta see what I look like. Here.
You look gorgeous.
ABBY: That’s what all the boys say.
She may be the house mother from hell, but she’ll forever be an icon of reality television. It’s the incomparable Abby Lee Miller! What’s new with you? How is Abby Lee Dance Company?
ABBY: We’re good. We’re plugging away. Yes, I have some kids scattered around the country.
What is it like knowing how much you’ve impacted the genre to this day?
ABBY: I just don’t know what to think. You know, so many days go by that I so regret signing that contract. There’s been a lot of ups and a lot of downs. And if anyone knows anything about reality TV, there are no residuals.
Right.
ABBY: So for a whole new generation to be watching the show. For Hulu to have purchased the show, and then Disney+ buys Hulu, and then, you know, I’m the princess, and I’m the villain. It’s like, throw me a free yearly pass or something Disney! C’mon!
I love dance. I can’t do it, but I appreciate the art form so much. What is it about the art of dance that is so universal?
ABBY: Well, it’s a language. It’s speaking without speaking. It’s artistry in motion. It’s telling the stories and those routines. I’ll give you an example. I teach on Zoom, till this day. You know, people did it during COVID, and now it’s over. No, I still teach on Zoom. I have kids all over the world. Mongolia, throughout the entire UK, Romania. And I say, “Okay, everybody, grand plié in second.” And bam. 100 kids on my Zoom, go down to grand plié in second. I think because dance is taught in the French language, that everybody knows it. It’s universal, and people enjoy it, just like yourself. You can sit in an audience in a theater and watch a performance and respect it and clap and get excited and understand the story. Other people want to get up on the dance floor and social dance. You know, at a wedding, people want to do the old line dances. So I think it’s just something that a lot of people, probably 98% of the people in the world, think they can do.
Yeah, it’s true. We get to see the other side of the dance industry today through Mad House. What would you say is the hardest part about the industry today?
ABBY: Too many dancers, not enough jobs? It’s simple. There are so many families, parents, insisting their kids go to college. Which, rightfully so. They go to school and they major in dance. And then what? Then move to LA and try to get a job dancing back up for somebody else because you never took a voice lesson? Or you moved to New York City. You want to be on Broadway. You want to be a Rockette. When my students from Pittsburgh were driving to New York City, taking the bus was like $39 for some bus. You get on it and you go. And they would go to Radio City, stand in line outside, get measured, make it in, do the audition, call me, say, “I got through. They want me to come back tomorrow.” Yay. We’re all screaming and yelling at the studio in Pittsburgh, in Penn Hills. We’re all, “Yay.” They go back, they do it. They cut, they cut, they cut. My kids are still there. They get on the bus, they come home, they wait for the phone call. They’re a Rockette for the next 12 years. Or they’re in the chorus, or they’re Clara. That’s how it used to be. Now, kids start taking, in around 10th grade, private lessons from Rockettes or former Rocktettes, on the routines, on the precision dancing. Private lessons for years and years and years and years to get that same job. I don’t know. I think it’s all kind of out of…there were 800 dancers trying to get 36 spots. And maybe out of those 36, there were only really six, because 30 girls were coming back.. That’s just too many dancers, you know, I don’t know.
Abby Lee Miller Teases What’s In Store for Season Two

Well, we are so excited for Season two of Mad House. How would you describe Mad House in three words?
ABBY: Music, acting, dance.
Love that! These dancers are living together all while trying to impress you and learn from you. What’s it like when you learn some of the hot gossip happening right under your roof?
ABBY: Disappointing? You know, that whole cattiness. healthy competition is good. It’s really good. But when I hear some things that I think are inappropriate, if you’re trying to get a job, and you’re living in someone else’s house, or you’re supposed to do a group project, and somebody just up and leaves and gets in their car and drives away, calls an Uber and says, “Screw you. I’m out of here.” No, that’s not on my watch.
You are known for your tough love, which I think is really fascinating to watch. Why is that the best coaching style?
ABBY: For me, I just always felt that if my kids make it through me, right, they grew up in my studio, in my building, doing my thing, there isn’t a choreographer, a producer, anybody out there in the entire world that’s going to ruffle their feathers or make them cry or make them second guess themselves because I trained them. And they are going to stand there with poise. They’re going to take it. They’re going to let it roll right off their shoulders while the other people choke.
You strive for perfection from them. Do you ever feel that you push too hard?
ABBY: Never. I’m just like Mama Rose.
Season two, we have some returning dancers, some new faces. Maybe we know from other shows. What can you tease about this upcoming season?
ABBY: Oh! I feel like the dancing is better, stronger. We have Haley [Huelsman] from Abby’s Ultimate Dance Competition, who’s a really strong New York dancer. So she can dance in heels, she can do acrobatics, gymnastics, she can do it all. We have Savoy [Bailey] returning, who is stunning, and just walks into a room and lights it up. We have Devin [Crews], who was a big surprise. Because he’s returning. I can’t believe this kid books jobs. He’s short, he’s little, he can’t even do a split, but there he is out there working. So he kind of proves that if you have the dream and the desire and the dedication, that you can have a career. To show other kids watching Mad House.
Debbie Allen came by last season. Anyone special stopping by this season?
ABBY: Oh, yes. And they don’t just stop by. I make them work
Absolutely. As they should! I love that
ABBY: I’m stepping back a little bit and really observing the talent and trying to hone these kids in while letting some of the most, wow, well-known choreographers in the industry come in and put them through their paces.
Last season, you mentioned how there was a little bit of a difference between taking in these dancers under your wing compared to training them since they were younger, had they been your students? Can you speak on that Because I really find that quite fascinating.
ABBY: Right, when you grow up in a studio, and you start there when you’re two and a half or three years old, you are trained from every different genre, every facet, every part of your life. How you pick a fork up. How, you know, all those life skills, too. These kids are coming in as young adults. Someone else trained them, and maybe someone failed them. I was so happy I was at the Grammy watch party that Steven Tyler hosts. And when Sabrina Carpenter started, and that tap number came to fruition. I was like, “Hallelujah,” because every weekend I teach around the world, and I do an audition process, and I get down to the best dancers in the room, you know, maybe 10 out of 200, and I say, “Raise your hand if you tap.” These amazing kids. Don’t put their hands up. I’m like, “Are you kidding me?” So that is a lot of it. You know, when you don’t grow up in the type of dance studio that I had, and you go, and you’re self-taught, or you’re this, or you’re that, you’re just a contemporary dancer. You don’t have somebody saying, ‘No, you must take X number of ballet classes a week, and tap and hip hop and lyrical and contemporary and ballroom.” You don’t get to take what you want at the Abby Lee Dance Company.
There it is. What is it like being able to watch some of your former students forge their own paths and become stars in their own right?
ABBY: Well, the ones that are nice and sweet and grateful, I think it’s absolutely freaking fabulous. It’s exciting. I’m so proud. Proud mama bear. Now, the other ones? Eh.

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Abby Lee Miller Talks the Legacy That Extends Off the Show

I’m sure some fans would love to know, do you keep in touch with any of your former students from Dance Moms?
ABBY: Yes, I have a podcast. Leave It On the Dance Floor, and you can hear me talk to Jojo [Siwa], of course, and her mother, Brynn [Rumfall], her mom. Sari Lopez was just on with Areana. And Elliana [Walmsley], Yolanda [Walmsley]. Yeah, a lot of the kids have been on. And it’s fun, and it’s great, and they are so super grateful because they know that being on the show was their starting point. It was a kickoff to a career, and without me, who knows, maybe the show would have been a bigger hit. Maybe it wouldn’t have lasted one season. I don’t know.
Now, part of your Dance Moms days, you always had a little rivalry with the Candy Apples. How would the Candy Apples fair against your kids at Mad House?
ABBY: She doesn’t like to get on a plane, first of all, so she couldn’t handle it. Second of all, she probably has crocheted drink cozies at her house and, you know, the toilet paper holder with the doll with the skirt with the crochet. Yeah, Kathy Candy Apple. She would not hang at the Mad House in the hills. She couldn’t handle it. I don’t think she could drive up there. And also, I don’t really know, have any of her older kids been dancing professionally? Do you?
I don’t, I don’t think so. I don’t think so.
ABBY: Yeah, last week or, well, I guess it’s two weeks ago, and I’m not sure, but I had a girl in Suffs on Broadway. She was a principal swing. She was swinging six different parts.
Damn.
ABBY: Her name is Kirsten Scott. And then Asmeret Ghebremichael was the Associate Director of The Notebook. I have a boy who was in Hamilton. Lefft Hamilton to do Chicago, to learn the Fosse choreography. Smart. and his name’s John Michael Fiumara. And then my probably most successful student who wasn’t on a TV show, Mark Myars, is the supervising director and choreographer of Death Becomes Her.
That’s amazing.
ABBY: So here it is in 2025, and still had four kids on Broadway during the holidays.
That’s amazing. Congratulations.
ABBY: Thank you. I’m very proud of that.
Now, let’s say we get Abby Lee Miller the Musical one day. Who is playing–
ABBY: No, it’s well, it’s Dance Moms the Musical. It was already a thing. Even Rosie O’Donnell put her name in the hat. You know, it should have been, could have been, would have been. The network was not interested. And then months later, no, years later, I get thrown this music saying you have to do a musical theater number for nationals. I’m like, no way. We’re doing lyrical contemporary. No way. They said, No, no, no, no, because some big executive at the network, their husband is the producer of The Prom: The Musical, so that’s what you have to do. I’m like, “Where was this guy three years ago when we were trying to do the show?” So, I don’t know what’s happening, but I’m still pursuing it. It’s not too late. We have the demographic. We have, you know, gay men, we have older women, and we have families, so we can sell tickets.
Absolutely. I will be there front row center, and I will be at the stage door. I would love to see it.
ABBY: Thank you so much. There’s interactive voting. It’s all, it’s so good.
That’s so exciting. Well, I hope it happens. But for now, everyone has to tune into Mad House. This new season is going to be incredible. Any last words you want to share about Mad House?
ABBY: They really made me mad.
Well, I can’t wait to tune in. Congratulations, and we’re so happy to see you back on TV.
ABBY: Thank you, sweetheart. I’m grateful to be back on TV and to Brandon TV. You can stream it, and it’s fun, and the kids are good.