Why Mackenzie & Maddie Ziegler Left ‘Dance Moms’ As Teenagers

Mackenzie and Maddie Ziegler left Dance Moms in the sixth season, but there is so much more to the story than that.

With the Dance Moms reunion special airing in May, and the Ziegler girls refusing to participate, many fans are wondering exactly what went down with the girls and teacher, Abby Lee Miller.

Did their time just run it’s course or was there something more substantial going on?

Spoiler alert: It’s the latter.

Why Mackenzie & Maddie Ziegler Left ‘Dance Moms’

In 2016, after six years with the show, Maddie and her sister Mackenzie left the Dance Moms franchise forever. Their exit has been a sour subject for them.

To hear Maddie tell it, by then, it wasn’t so much of a choice to leave, but a need.

 “For the longest time, we felt so guilty,” The Fallout actress told Cosmopolitan in 2022. 

“She trained me, she helped me, but also, I knew I would be okay without her and I was sick of being in a toxic environment. I was like, ‘This is not for me. I can’t do this.’”

Maddie has not spoken to Abby Lee since.

The problem was, the girls were still under contract with the show and Lifetime. By the time the girls were finally ready to leave, they had a powerful ally in their corner: Sia.

Sia had enlisted young Maddie to star in some of her most popular music videos, like Chandelier. Because of that relationship, she was able to help the family out.

“[My mom] really did everything to try to break our contract and pull us out, and eventually did with the help of Sia,” Maddie said of her exit in 2016 in a 2023 podcast. “It was hard … We would do almost 30 episodes a season, so it consumed our lives.”

Abby Lee Miller’s Reaction To The Ziegler Sister’s Exit

Shortly after Maddie made those comments about the dance company being “toxic,”, Abby Lee Miller sat down for an appearance on Sofia Franklyn’s Sofia With an F podcast to discuss her relationship with the family.

“I can’t really separate Maddie from her sister and her mother, and there is some…I don’t want to use the term ‘bad blood,’ but there are some devastating things there.”

Indeed, for Abbey Lee, she seemed she was far less concerned with the accusations of bullying and abuse, and far more concerned with the allegation that she was stiffed money by Mack and her mother.

Abby alleged that she did not receive “one penny” from Mackenzie’s 2014 song “It’s a Girl Party,” despite having produced it.

“A song that went to No. 1 in three countries on iTunes, ‘It’s a Girl Party.’ I produced it. I did everything for that child. Mack Z was my creation,” Abby claimed.

Ziegler Sisters Skipped The ‘Dance Moms’ Reunion

It’s clear now, all these years later, that Maddie and her sister prefer to put the past behind them.

When Lifetime invited them to appear on Dance Moms: The Reunion, the immediately declined.

“We didn’t want to go back in time to that era,” they said in a statement to ET.

But the choice to relive their childhood does not mean they still don’t have relationships with the other girls.

The day before Dance Moms: The Reunion filmed, the majority of the original cast – minus Abbey Lee, obv – came together to celebrate Paige Hyland’s birthday. This included Nia Sioux and her mother, who also did not participate in the reunion.

In photos shared on social media by Maddie’s mother, Melissa Gisoni , all of the girls look happy to be reunited. Notably absent are the other two girls who actually participated in the reunion special: JoJo Siwa and Kalani Hilliker. The latter was brought onto the show during Brooke and Paige’s final episode, during the infamous fight that is still a viral moment to this day.