Speaker 1: So I hesitated to have Abby Lee Miller on because
Speaker 1: of what I was reading about her. Honestly, I didn't
Speaker 1: know much about the show, and I read a lot
Speaker 1: about her, and I hesitated to have her on. I
Speaker 1: know she's a fan, and she's messaged me, and I
Speaker 1: want to be kind and I always want to have
Speaker 1: someone in that I will be fair too. But when
Speaker 1: you read that someone was incarcerated and about racism claims
Speaker 1: and bankruptcy, fraud and things like that and calling, you know,
Speaker 1: calling Taylor Swift sort of like a name about a physicality,
Speaker 1: I'm going to ask her the question. So I wanted
Speaker 1: to be fair, And because there's a medical situation involved,
Speaker 1: I think that that really was going to raise awareness
Speaker 1: for other people with medical conditions or cautionary tales, or
Speaker 1: for preventative health care for cancer. So I've been conflicted
Speaker 1: about it, but I hope that the takeaway is positive
Speaker 1: and helpful. Hi, how are you good?
Speaker 2: How are you?
Speaker 1: I'm good? You messaged me on Instagram and we spoke
Speaker 1: a while back, very briefly. Yes, and where are you?
Speaker 2: I am currently in Orlando, Florida. I'm flying to LA
Speaker 2: back today tonight.
Speaker 1: Okay, you live in La, and that's where your dance
Speaker 1: academy is.
Speaker 2: I live in La. My studio is there. It's really
Speaker 2: actually a store that is okay. So very briefly, I
Speaker 2: had a ten thousand square foot studio. It was twenty
Speaker 2: nine grand a month before I turned the light on
Speaker 2: for rent, and it was gorgeous. I spent about half
Speaker 2: a million building it out, beautiful, stunning, state of the art,
Speaker 2: and then which the networks should have paid half of
Speaker 2: just throwing them out out there, because you know all
Speaker 2: about the networks paying for stuff. And I went to prison,
Speaker 2: and my friends and people at work for me had
Speaker 2: my lease was up, so there's no way we could
Speaker 2: bring in that kind of money without me there. So
Speaker 2: they moved quickly across the street just the retail store.
Speaker 2: Because my store did really well. It was gorgeous, pink
Speaker 2: glitter floor, the whole bit, and they moved it across
Speaker 2: the street to just save it. And so then after
Speaker 2: a while people kept asking for private lessons and choreography
Speaker 2: and blah blah blah. So they we put the dance
Speaker 2: floor in the mirrors, in the bars in the back
Speaker 2: of it, so it's more like a little botique studio.
Speaker 2: Kids come from Australia, they come from Germany, and they
Speaker 2: get a solo choreograph and they go on their way.
Speaker 1: And you were a child dancer. You've been dancing your
Speaker 1: whole life.
Speaker 2: Yes, since I was three. But I wasn't a star.
Speaker 2: I wasn't My mother never kept me. My mother wasn't
Speaker 2: She didn't want me at the studio day and night.
Speaker 2: I wasn't a studio brat. I wasn't in the front,
Speaker 2: in the middle of every number.
Speaker 1: Okay.
Speaker 2: My mom was a good businesswoman, and I really didn't
Speaker 2: give her credit for that.
Speaker 1: And how did you get into this whole business and
Speaker 1: the show? And how did they find you? And when
Speaker 1: was there?
Speaker 2: Okay, they didn't find me. Okay. First of all, I
Speaker 2: at thirteen years old, got a flyer in the mail
Speaker 2: at my house. My mom did, and it in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania,
Speaker 2: where I was born and raised in Pittsburgh in the suburbs,
Speaker 2: about twenty minutes out of the city. Okay. So I
Speaker 2: my dad worked at the railroad in conjunction with the
Speaker 2: steel mills. He was a yard master for the railroad.
Speaker 2: So I mean he had an office job, you know, eventually,
Speaker 2: but it was a good job, really good job. And
Speaker 2: my mother had seven studios in Miami, Florida, and she
Speaker 2: didn't want she the reason she left and moved to
Speaker 2: Pittsburgh to marry my dad is she didn't want to
Speaker 2: walk out on her pension, hit him to walk out
Speaker 2: on his pension and his benefits and all that, because
Speaker 2: her dad did that for Westinghouse and walked out and
Speaker 2: they had nothing. So she moved back to Pittsburgh. Hated
Speaker 2: it every minute of her life, not the marriage, the city.
Speaker 2: And then she, I mean her kids were dancing at
Speaker 2: the fontaine Bleue with the rat Pack in Elvis Presley.
Speaker 2: When the band took a break, my mother's girls performed
Speaker 2: got it. So I was in Pittsburgh. I was doing
Speaker 2: my once a week dancing school. I was a girl scout,
Speaker 2: I was I took ice skating and roller skating, and
Speaker 2: I played the clarinet. I was on the swim team.
Speaker 2: I did everything and nothing nothing well, So I uh,
Speaker 2: it was one. It was that era where you did
Speaker 2: your kid did everything right. And so I got this
Speaker 2: flyer in the mail and it said dance competition. And
Speaker 2: that's the first time you ever saw those two words together.
Speaker 2: This is in like nineteen eighty right. So I got
Speaker 2: three girlfriends and I said, Mom, I want to do this,
Speaker 2: and she said, what you want to do a solo? Wait? Wait,
Speaker 2: you're going to pay money for people to watch you dance? No,
Speaker 2: you should get paid. This is the wrong way, And
Speaker 2: so I said, place pace please. So I took three girlfriends.
Speaker 2: I taught them a routine. I got the costumes, so
Speaker 2: I did the whole thing myself. We won. I got
Speaker 2: the twelve inch plastic trophy in my hand, and I
Speaker 2: knew that that's what I was put on this earth
Speaker 2: to do.
Speaker 1: So you started competing like you started being in that world.
Speaker 2: That's what God will put me here for.
Speaker 1: Got it, Okay?
Speaker 2: I did? So. Then that fall I asked my mom
Speaker 2: if I could start a competition team at the studio
Speaker 2: and she said yes. So I was fourteen. The kids
Speaker 2: were between eight and eleven, so I was teaching. I
Speaker 2: had to do it for free because I was only fourteen.
Speaker 2: And that grew to one hundred and forty eight competition kids.
Speaker 2: Four hundred kids in the studio.
Speaker 1: At fourteen years old.
Speaker 2: At fourteen years old, no, over the years till I
Speaker 2: was thirty, that grew.
Speaker 1: And were you making good money doing that?
Speaker 2: Well, I was working for my mom and dad, and
Speaker 2: then at twenty two, I took over the business and
Speaker 2: I built my own building. So at twenty two with nothing, owning, nothing,
Speaker 2: living at home, well I lived at school, but whatever
Speaker 2: I did a I borrowed six hundred thousand dollars at
Speaker 2: nine and three quarter percent interest and built my own building.
Speaker 1: So you were entrepreneurial young, okay. And then so then
Speaker 1: how did the show? Who created the show? And how
Speaker 1: did you collide with the show.
Speaker 2: So I'm at a dance competition in Vegas and I
Speaker 2: bumped been to an old friend, a kid. His name
Speaker 2: is John Carella. He was a dancer, a competition dancer,
Speaker 2: and my kids used to compete, not really against him,
Speaker 2: but like a little younger. So he was giving up
Speaker 2: his title of team Mister Dance of America and my
Speaker 2: student was winning it. Okay, the next year, so I knew,
Speaker 2: I'm my new family. YadA, YadA, YadA. He's from Phoenix, Arizona.
Speaker 2: He's in Vegas at a competition. I'm like, what the
Speaker 2: hell are you doing here? He's a professional dancer at
Speaker 2: this point, doing like Janet Jackson's World tour sling deans.
Speaker 2: I mean, he's very successful, very masculine, good looking guy. Okay,
Speaker 2: so we step all night talking, reminiscing, blah blah blah.
Speaker 2: I the next day, I'm leaving the hotel. He's coming in.
Speaker 2: I said where. He's like, where are you going? I said,
Speaker 2: I'm going down to another hotel to see my little ones.
Speaker 2: He's like, what do you mean your kids are here.
Speaker 2: They're doing amazing, they're going to win the whole thing.
Speaker 2: I said, yeah, but my bad kids are somewhere else.
Speaker 2: So I said, come with me. We jumped in the taxi,
Speaker 2: went down the street to the Dolly Dinkle thing, walk
Speaker 2: in and there's Maddie doing her solo and this kid
Speaker 2: doing a solo and that kid doing a solo. And
Speaker 2: I look over at him and his shaw is like this.
Speaker 2: I said, what's wrong? Said Abby? These kids are adorable.
Speaker 2: These kids should be on television. Yeah. I'm like, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2: Let me take you outside to meet their mothers. And
Speaker 2: there they were at the pool outside the ballroom, drunk,
Speaker 2: broke and bitching about every single thing that was going on. Wow,
Speaker 2: they wanted to be up at the fancy convention, at
Speaker 2: the big hotel. Their kids were young. It was their
Speaker 2: first time out of Pittsburgh competing.
Speaker 1: You're saying they weren't at the level. So they were
Speaker 1: like and they wanted to be got it. So that's
Speaker 1: like the stage mom dance mom thing. Oh it's okay,
Speaker 1: So how do you get the show? He knows people,
Speaker 1: he connects show.
Speaker 2: We get in the car and he said, I have
Speaker 2: an idea and it could be really good. He spent
Speaker 2: the next entire year working on a format.
Speaker 1: Wow. Oh so he was the executive producer.
Speaker 2: Well he gets credit for that, yes, the creator.
Speaker 1: Yes, you got no creative credit, nothing.
Speaker 2: But the phone call started, how do you do this?
Speaker 2: How do you do that? Because he wasn't a dancer.
Speaker 2: He was a professional dancer.
Speaker 1: Right, No, you were producing the show. That's fair. You
Speaker 1: were producing the show.
Speaker 2: Like, he didn't understand how do the moms? Well, how
Speaker 2: do you get a solo? Well? How do you?
Speaker 1: And I'm like John, so hold on, So where is
Speaker 1: it going to be aired? Then? So he puts together
Speaker 1: So I don't want to be too wealthy. I just
Speaker 1: want to really understand what happened.
Speaker 2: So he puts together a concept he and I so, yeah,
Speaker 2: with all the questions. Okay, right, and then he takes
Speaker 2: it to his friend who's the casting director for The
Speaker 2: Bachelor and the Bachelorette. Okay, his best friend, and she says, John,
Speaker 2: I think you have something here, but I hate kids.
Speaker 2: This is not for me. Let me introduce you to
Speaker 2: this guy named Brian's insign. Okay, is does kids birthday
Speaker 2: parties and stuff like that. Okay, you know TV shows
Speaker 2: about birthday parties. So he introduced them. They formed a
Speaker 2: partnership and they started taking it around to production companies
Speaker 2: and they got the door shut, door shut, door shut.
Speaker 2: They walked into Collins Avenue and Collins Avenue said, we'll
Speaker 2: give you three thousand dollars to shoot a sissle. Okay,
Speaker 2: so they did, and then they got my recital footage,
Speaker 2: my competition footage, my kids head shots, my everything that
Speaker 2: was on my computer in the bedroom at home, and.
Speaker 1: Then it got picked up.
Speaker 2: Then they put the sizzle together, and then eleven networks
Speaker 2: were interested. And this is a bitting warm for you.
Speaker 2: It came down to two Bravo and Lifetime.
Speaker 1: Oh interesting, okay.
Speaker 2: That could be Andy Cummon, I know, and in Lifetime
Speaker 2: bought the show. Unfortunately, Lifetime bought the show.
Speaker 1: It's very Lifetime. It's very Lifetime, so you guys do
Speaker 1: the show, and well.
Speaker 2: No, they so the Lifetime within ten minutes of buying
Speaker 2: the Shadow flipped the whole thing to a Housewives chew.
Speaker 2: It wasn't dance moms, and it wasn't about moms. The
Speaker 2: moms were a part of it, but it was about
Speaker 2: the dancing and the kids, and they nixed that whole thing.
Speaker 2: Eighty percent the moms, ten percent, the kids, ten percent dance.
Speaker 1: I don't know that much about this world. I want
Speaker 1: to get into it because I am friends with Sia
Speaker 1: and I know about Maddie, and I didn't know. I
Speaker 1: didn't know that much about this. I started doing research
Speaker 1: about it and reading about you, and you had messaged me,
Speaker 1: but I really didn't know that much. You've made You've
Speaker 1: commented on my Instagram, et cetera. And to be honest
Speaker 1: with you, when I read about you, I was like,
Speaker 1: whoa like your bio is or what people write about
Speaker 1: you is very polarizing like and coming from a polarizing person,
Speaker 1: I was like, ooh, so let's get into some of that.
Speaker 1: So there's a lot of stuff here and I'm you're
Speaker 1: a guest, and so I'm not, by any stretch of
Speaker 1: the imagination, a person who like gotchas or ambushes. But
Speaker 1: once I started to like do a deep dive and
Speaker 1: read about you, I was like, okay, we have we
Speaker 1: have like a sort of an issue with the girls
Speaker 1: not wanting you to be on a reunion, and I'm
Speaker 1: going to go through, but then we can break it
Speaker 1: down an issue with the girls not wanting you to
Speaker 1: be on a reunion, and then we have a racism
Speaker 1: claim and you've been incarcerated and like and sadly you
Speaker 1: have cancer now or you're recovering.
Speaker 2: I am cancer free.
Speaker 1: Oh thank god. Okay, wow, I'm sorry. I'm very sorry.
Speaker 1: So there's a lot here that has to kind of
Speaker 1: be addressed because it's like what is written and you seem,
Speaker 1: you know, lovely, and you seem, you know, like it
Speaker 1: seems like you're good at what you do and your
Speaker 1: passion about it, and you've been successful. I don't know
Speaker 1: if you ultimately have been successful or if all this
Speaker 1: cost you all your money, because it sounds like it
Speaker 1: costs you a lot of money. And I don't know,
Speaker 1: did you run circ did you go in circles and
Speaker 1: you ended up making no money during the entire six perio.
Speaker 2: The show did. Is what the show did and the
Speaker 2: moms did is ruin my business. They destroyed my business
Speaker 2: just because like it was a six week docuseries. That's
Speaker 2: what it started out as. So I thought, for six weeks,
Speaker 2: I can handle this in my studio. They were using
Speaker 2: my studio for free, lifetime, using my studio for free,
Speaker 2: no gas bill, light built nothing.
Speaker 1: But why didn't you demand that if you had a
Speaker 1: hit show?
Speaker 2: Well I did later, but when it first started nothing.
Speaker 1: Yeah, in the beginning, I got paid seven thousand dollars
Speaker 1: for the whole season. But that's that's what. That's what
Speaker 1: it is. Though it's nothing. They're not gonna that's that's
Speaker 1: that's not like I'm not crying for you about that,
Speaker 1: Like that's what The kids.
Speaker 2: Were not homeschooled. The kids were not homeschooled. Shooting at
Speaker 2: four o'clock and that was the problem. That's what destroyed
Speaker 2: my business. Why because my business was my business. If
Speaker 2: we would have wrapped at four o'clock, I would have
Speaker 2: a thriving business in Pittsburgh.
Speaker 1: Right, But why didn't But again again, why didn't you
Speaker 1: not do that, Like I'm saying, you thought there was
Speaker 1: an upside to it, that you were willing to sacrifice
Speaker 1: that I.
Speaker 2: Did, But then I demanded after the six weeks got
Speaker 2: pushed to a season.
Speaker 1: I was like saying, the first six weeks was the sizzle,
Speaker 1: the first first six weeks the first season of it
Speaker 1: when you got.
Speaker 2: Picked up, supposed to be a docu series? Yes, for six.
Speaker 1: Weekss and how many episodes? Was that supposed to be? Six?
Speaker 2: Right?
Speaker 1: Right? So that's one time though? But didn't you do
Speaker 1: it over and over? So like what so six weeks
Speaker 1: is six weeks? But why I'm saying, next year you
Speaker 1: have a hit show, don't you renegotiate? Like what, I
Speaker 1: don't get it.
Speaker 2: I signed a four year contract with a four year option,
Speaker 2: under duress, with a piece of paper with a pen
Speaker 2: in my hand, stuck in my hand, after I repeatedly
Speaker 2: said I don't want to sign anything. I don't have
Speaker 2: an entertainment attorney. I don't want to see.
Speaker 1: Anything you have. You have all that I'm writing saying,
Speaker 1: I don't want to sign anything, I don't have an
Speaker 1: entertainment attorney.
Speaker 2: Probably have it on film, yes.
Speaker 1: So why didn't you use that to like take action.
Speaker 2: I finally got an entertainment attorney and screwed me over
Speaker 2: big time. He signed everything.
Speaker 1: And but why didn't you go to another lawyer, like
Speaker 1: or somebody who liked I mean, if you had, if
Speaker 1: you had, if you had on camera that I don't
Speaker 1: want to sign this. I don't want to do that.
Speaker 1: But I get that it's hard to make That's one
Speaker 1: of the things that's interesting is that it's hard to
Speaker 1: force people to like live and work on camera. But
Speaker 1: so you're saying you just kept getting picked up and
Speaker 1: you couldn't get out. You wanted to get out after
Speaker 1: the first and.
Speaker 2: Then we got picked up again. I did have an
Speaker 2: entertainment attorney that I trusted that had passed the bar
Speaker 2: and ended up signing my life away and a contract
Speaker 2: that the other we're taping this, this isn't live right. No,
Speaker 2: you hit on a couple of things. Okay. First of all,
Speaker 2: the mothers refused to homeschool the kids absolutely refused. Nowadays,
Speaker 2: and you're a New Yorker, that's a different thing. In Pittsburgh,
Speaker 2: we have Pennsylvania public education, which is excellent. Our school
Speaker 2: taxes are insane. We played property tax and school taxes.
Speaker 2: They're nuts. Okay, it's outrageous, but we have really good
Speaker 2: public education. Nobody was homeschooled after the pandemic.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, but okay, so they don't want to homeschool
Speaker 1: their kids. That's their rights. You are right to not
Speaker 1: do it if they don't want to. I just don't
Speaker 1: get like, okay, right.
Speaker 2: Six weeks went to thirteen weeks. It was no new thing.
Speaker 2: After six weeks it went from six weeks to thirteen weeks.
Speaker 1: They said, we want to extend it, we want to
Speaker 1: do more episodes.
Speaker 2: Yeah, without anybody signing anything. The moms didn't sign anything new.
Speaker 1: I don't and I know that because in the beginning
Speaker 1: I was we were shooting without contracts years ago, sort
Speaker 1: of weird good faith, and I remember that's a story
Speaker 1: I've never told, But yes, I was shooting the Housewives
Speaker 1: and hadn't signed a contract yet. Exactly later, yeah, exactly exactly.
Speaker 2: That's interesting to think about my mom and dad giving
Speaker 2: me their life savings to build my building. I borrow
Speaker 2: all this money, right, and then I'm in bankruptcy because
Speaker 2: it's a lot of things. But it was two thousand
Speaker 2: and eight, the crash, I had rental, I had stuff
Speaker 2: in Florida that was on ajuticable rate, mortga jaize blah
Speaker 2: blah blah ah this crop.
Speaker 1: So my dad put you under financial dress to do
Speaker 1: the show. You made bad decisions, and you didn't have
Speaker 1: the right legal advice because it's in the beginning when
Speaker 1: you can't afford good legal advice, which people have experienced.
Speaker 2: So you make clear bankruptcy on December tenth April tenth,
Speaker 2: four months later the show started in my studio.
Speaker 1: Why did you I declared bankruptcy before the show started.
Speaker 2: Before the show started, before you.
Speaker 1: Started filming the show four months Well, then that means
Speaker 1: you're not making good financial decisions in your life anyway, right,
Speaker 1: Oh okay, so that's accountability. You're saying you're it.
Speaker 2: Wasn't good financial decisions, but that my dad used to
Speaker 2: run the books. I'm an only child, no excuse, but
Speaker 2: my dad.
Speaker 1: Okay, I gotta say something because we spoke before, and
Speaker 1: it says in here that you said, like so you
Speaker 1: believe you shouldn't have gone to jail. It gives a
Speaker 1: little bit overall that it's like the mom's fault, that
Speaker 1: it's like you shouldn't have gone to jail. That it's
Speaker 1: like the bankruptcy, is that your fault? Like there's a
Speaker 1: little bit of like non accountability. So is none of
Speaker 1: this your fault? I don't I'm reading on paper and
Speaker 1: it could all be a lie. I'm just saying, is
Speaker 1: none of this your voote? You were incarcerated, you went
Speaker 1: to jail, and it's not your fault, like you didn't
Speaker 1: do anything wrong? Like and you didn't do it?
Speaker 2: Oh, I take things wrong. I made bad decisions, things wrong.
Speaker 2: Because you're just reading like this and not here and there.
Speaker 2: You don't know me. We're not sitting in my house.
Speaker 2: You're I mean the government.
Speaker 1: Could you seem lovely? Sorry?
Speaker 2: I come on in. How can I help you? What
Speaker 2: do you want? I'll tell everything you want to know.
Speaker 2: I'm an open book, no problem. So that's not what happened. Uh,
Speaker 2: it was an absolute witch hunt. While I was in bankruptcy.
Speaker 2: The show started.
Speaker 3: Uh.
Speaker 2: The judge's wife was a super fan, and he was
Speaker 2: seeing ads on the TV about me doing a television
Speaker 2: show and thought, she has all this money. Where is
Speaker 2: all this money?
Speaker 1: Not realizing you're not really getting pad because people people
Speaker 1: into money going out, but they don't just throw you
Speaker 1: in jail based on a TV commercial.
Speaker 2: No I did, I did something wrong. I went to prison, okay,
Speaker 2: because make sure you get this right, okay, because I
Speaker 2: was maybe going to walk away from a house in Florida,
Speaker 2: and the judge stated this was her closing thing, that
Speaker 2: Chase Bank would have never negotiated my rate so low
Speaker 2: if they knew I was on a television show.
Speaker 1: But what about the Switzerland, the Swiss money or something
Speaker 1: I read about like that, it's from Australia. That was
Speaker 1: my right, sorry Australia.
Speaker 2: Now was Melissa. Melissa was all in charge of all
Speaker 2: the money. I taught the dance classes, they sold the merchandise.
Speaker 2: Oh we're gonna bring this money home, and this is
Speaker 2: what we're gonna do. Everybody's gonna take ten thousand, alvi,
Speaker 2: this is what we're gonna do. Why in God's name
Speaker 2: I was paying six hundred and fifty thousand.
Speaker 1: Oh like they were claiming. They were saying bankruptcy fraud,
Speaker 1: and that you filed for bankruptcy, but you really had
Speaker 1: money because you were on the show. And they said that, okay,
Speaker 1: that there's a Florida mortgage.
Speaker 2: Before the show ever started.
Speaker 1: I'm literally, I'm just reading off this paper. I don't
Speaker 1: it just as an article. I'm not, I'm not. I
Speaker 1: don't have anything on my own. I didn't know anything
Speaker 1: about I literally did not know you were in jail.
Speaker 2: Oh that's why I'm in That's why I'm in a
Speaker 2: wheelchair because in prison I was punished and taking all
Speaker 2: my medication cold turkey.
Speaker 1: Well that sounds like a lawsuit too. Why haven't you
Speaker 1: taken legal action about that?
Speaker 2: I did. I hired an attorney.
Speaker 1: And what happened to that attorney trusted him? So that's
Speaker 1: the second attorney you trusted that, Okay?
Speaker 2: Yes, and his name was Brian Claypole, Okay. And I
Speaker 2: hired him and went through the process expert witnesses this
Speaker 2: and that, on paying pay and pay and paying, sending
Speaker 2: him a check for this, send him a check for that,
Speaker 2: and then all of a sudden, I get an email
Speaker 2: back I can't work on your case anymore. Lo and
Speaker 2: behold he missed the firing date.
Speaker 1: So so all right, So you're on the successful show
Speaker 1: and all of these famous people come out of it,
Speaker 1: Jojo Siwa, Maddie Ziegler, and there's there, there are there's
Speaker 1: a conflict between you and some of them, and then
Speaker 1: conflict between them within each other, and they do this
Speaker 1: reunion experience and they don't They'll only do it if
Speaker 1: you're not there. What's the problem. What's the conflict with
Speaker 1: you and them as adults now? Because they were kids?
Speaker 2: Then you can't face me because they know they would
Speaker 2: never be where they are today if it wasn't for
Speaker 2: the show. There's two little girls named Brooken Page Highland
Speaker 2: who I was very close to, much closer emotionally and
Speaker 2: family wise than any of the other kids. Their mother
Speaker 2: was in my original competition team when I was fourteen
Speaker 2: years old, their mother, and she stayed at my studio.
Speaker 2: Then she left, got married, had kids, brought them to
Speaker 2: my studio at two years old, and stayed until the
Speaker 2: show started. So my point is, if this was so
Speaker 2: toxic for all these kids, why did they come back
Speaker 2: at three and four and five, and six and seven
Speaker 2: and eighty.
Speaker 1: In my mind, well, well that's a separate conversation because
Speaker 1: I was reading about that, and people have come at
Speaker 1: Maddie saying that you know or why would you go back?
Speaker 1: But I think the mothers, I think are putting the
Speaker 1: mothers at the stage moms that are putting the kids.
Speaker 1: They want the kids to be famous, and they're putting
Speaker 1: the kids through the system. But that doesn't mean that
Speaker 1: the relationship with the kids in you was healthy or positive.
Speaker 1: I don't know. I'm just going by what I'm what
Speaker 1: I'm hearing.
Speaker 2: Kids, the kids came back. There were other studios in town.
Speaker 2: Mine was the best. There were other studios in telling.
Speaker 2: There's colleges in Pittsburgh.
Speaker 1: Oh, I don't doubt who doubt that your talented? You've
Speaker 1: created a successful A lot of these successful talent. It
Speaker 1: seems like, are you youre.
Speaker 2: Don't read what you don't read that Lifetime didn't want
Speaker 2: anyone to know. They wanted me to be this down
Speaker 2: and out po dunk, heavy set dance teacher screaming at
Speaker 2: these little kids because that made good TV. Nobody talks
Speaker 2: about the kids that I've had in drum roll please
Speaker 2: twenty five Broadway shows. Wow you read that anywhere?
Speaker 1: Wow?
Speaker 2: Five Broadway shows. I have had kids from Pittsburgh in
Speaker 2: that I took that. I drove their asses back and
Speaker 2: forth to the auditions, not their parents.
Speaker 1: And by the way, that's what goes on ice skating
Speaker 1: and the kids aren't going to be successful. Someone's not
Speaker 1: grinding them. So I think that the mistake in your life,
Speaker 1: besides like the financial stuff and the lawyers, was to
Speaker 1: document this process because I think it's probably not that
Speaker 1: pretty making kid making child stars. It doesn't seem like
Speaker 1: a pretty process.
Speaker 2: I drove them. I drove those kids to No.
Speaker 1: No, I don't doubt it. I'm saying, I'm saying I
Speaker 1: don't think it's a pretty business. Then there's another.
Speaker 2: Good times there were I'm sure.
Speaker 1: No, no, no, I'm just saying I'm talking about not from you.
Speaker 1: Just overall there's a conversation and pageants and and ice
Speaker 1: skating and our kids, kids beyond this sky. I would
Speaker 1: never put my daughter through that kind of any any
Speaker 1: of that. I would never put her through that. I
Speaker 1: think that sounds like torture and it sounds like a
Speaker 1: job as a child like my daughter, it was what.
Speaker 2: It was fun, It was wonderful. And and just let
Speaker 2: me say that there's a lot of kids in Pittsburgh
Speaker 2: that would have never gotten out of Pittsburgh fair if it.
Speaker 1: Was no fair point, fair point, no fit fit, fair point,
Speaker 1: and ended up supporting their family.
Speaker 2: Perty.
Speaker 1: No, you can't it's not binary, it's not black and white.
Speaker 1: I understand that too, I really do. I'm just saying,
Speaker 1: my daughter, there.
Speaker 2: Were good times and it was fun, and they loved
Speaker 2: what they were doing. They loved it.
Speaker 1: They love Okay. So so now Maddie goes on to
Speaker 1: be a huge star, and she didn't want to.
Speaker 2: So this little six week docuseries was about the moms, okay,
Speaker 2: and suddenly I'm on the show. I was never to
Speaker 2: be on the show. I was not on the show
Speaker 2: when it started, this six week docuseries. But a mother
Speaker 2: came in bitching at me. I called the police, flipped out,
Speaker 2: called the police. The police came, took her away, and
Speaker 2: they got all that footage. The cameraman. Okay, that got
Speaker 2: back to the network. I get you on the show
Speaker 2: three or four and said, whoa, who is this woman?
Speaker 3: Right?
Speaker 2: Who is this? This is the glue that holds these Oh.
Speaker 1: I get no, no doubt, undeniably, I fully no, I
Speaker 1: fully get. I fully get that. There's no I make.
Speaker 1: There's no like if you were on the Housewives, you
Speaker 1: would be a good housewive. Vermona does not always do
Speaker 1: and say popular things at all, and she's been canceled
Speaker 1: as a result of it. But she was a good
Speaker 1: housewife because she always brought the drama but didn't kill
Speaker 1: the party. So I'm saying, I get there's there are
Speaker 1: many types, there are villains, there are favorites.
Speaker 3: There.
Speaker 1: I'm not, by no means, am I thinking that your
Speaker 1: entire life is boiled down to what was ever on
Speaker 1: that camera? By no means. But I ever think that.
Speaker 1: I'm not stupid and I'm not a hypocrite. Yeah, no,
Speaker 1: I get it.
Speaker 2: So the kids, Okay, you're going to the kids becoming stars,
Speaker 2: not my kids that weren't on the TV show. That
Speaker 2: are stars who should be who should be recognized.
Speaker 1: Well, this is this is what happened.
Speaker 2: Yeah, right, but these kids, so all of a sudden,
Speaker 2: the network says, we want a new routine every week.
Speaker 2: Uh uh, wait a minute. The kids never auditioned to
Speaker 2: be on the show. They sat in a chair next
Speaker 2: to their mothers and were cute. They never danced. There
Speaker 2: was no five six, seven eight dance like a.
Speaker 1: Real what you're talking about? Wait, what what do you mean?
Speaker 1: The ones that were cast it was a casting situation.
Speaker 1: They weren't the real dancers.
Speaker 2: What you're saying yes, when that's the cast the show.
Speaker 2: It was an interview. They sat in a chair next
Speaker 2: to their mothers and were interviewed.
Speaker 1: It wasn't supposed to be about dancing.
Speaker 2: Correct, There was no dance audition okay until season two
Speaker 2: three four? Right? Okay, So these particular kids whose mothers
Speaker 2: didn't follow the roles in the studio, didn't take pay
Speaker 2: their bills on.
Speaker 1: Best Television Kids. You're saying they.
Speaker 2: Couldn't pick up the dance routines. How are they going
Speaker 2: to learn a new routine in a week. We had
Speaker 2: them for two days Wednesday and Thursday, two days.
Speaker 1: They weren't They weren't respectful of your best dancers. They
Speaker 1: were the best talent, They were the best entertainment.
Speaker 2: The moms were, their moms were. The kids were just cute, okay,
Speaker 2: nothing more. They were camera.
Speaker 1: Friendly whatever that went on to be big stores.
Speaker 2: Thank you. I'll take that as a compliment.
Speaker 1: But no, but you're saying that it was because they
Speaker 1: were just cute. I mean, it's because they were cute
Speaker 1: and talent. I mean it was because they were cute
Speaker 1: and entertaining that they wanted to be big stars. You
Speaker 1: said they weren't the best dancers.
Speaker 2: They weren't. Okay, so these kids weren't the best at
Speaker 2: picking up the choreography. When you do a solo in
Speaker 2: my studio, okay, you started in September, October, November, December,
Speaker 2: you start competing in February. You have six months to
Speaker 2: learn a dance, one dance six months. Now, we were
Speaker 2: learning three dances in two days.
Speaker 1: Okay, So what does that mean? Why is that?
Speaker 3: So?
Speaker 2: That was the conflict. That's what created the conflict, week
Speaker 2: after week after week?
Speaker 1: Is got it?
Speaker 2: Yes, Page and Brooke could not pick up to save
Speaker 2: their lives like that just not swift. Maybe it's school
Speaker 2: with the book, fine, but not in the dance studio. Okay.
Speaker 2: Nia was always late coming because the Hally was a
Speaker 2: principal in his private She schooled downtown and had to
Speaker 2: get her there. Okay. The Chloe wasn't allowed to miss
Speaker 2: a day of school. Mattie's mother took her out of school,
Speaker 2: brought her to the studio during the day, no cameras,
Speaker 2: no producers. She learned the numbers out of time, throwing
Speaker 2: that out there.
Speaker 1: That's great.
Speaker 2: Worked with acting friend who's an acting coach from Carnegie
Speaker 2: Mellon University, throwing that out.
Speaker 1: There, got it all right. So this experience was amazing
Speaker 1: for these girls and they are massive stars. And Mattie
Speaker 1: Ziegler's gone into amazing things and she, as her right,
Speaker 1: didn't want to go back to the reunion. I know
Speaker 1: people had a problem with that. I've read about that,
Speaker 1: but like she's allowed to be Beyonce and they can
Speaker 1: be Destiny's child. I mean, she decided what she wanted
Speaker 1: to decide, right and whatever.
Speaker 2: If one of the other kids moms would have got
Speaker 2: them out of school and brought them early, maybe they
Speaker 2: would have been the star and learned all the numbers
Speaker 2: ahead of time. Well, we needed a kid that could
Speaker 2: be in the front and be in the middle and
Speaker 2: know those numbers.
Speaker 1: What do you think about Jojo Siwa? And like her
Speaker 1: recent you know Maya, she's.
Speaker 2: Like Jojo came from a spinoff show that I did,
Speaker 2: Abby's Ultimate Dance Competition. It was a competition show I
Speaker 2: did in La in season two and season three of
Speaker 2: Dance Moms. So I just to give you the prison
Speaker 2: the jail thing, which we didn't go to. So I
Speaker 2: shot thirteen episodes of Dance Moms plus two specials. I
Speaker 2: shot another season of Dance Moms. We shut two a year,
Speaker 2: another thirteen episodes and two specials, so that's thirty shows.
Speaker 2: Then I flew to LA and I shot thirteen episodes
Speaker 2: forty three weeks out of fifty two weeks a year.
Speaker 2: I was on TV insane, that's what I do and
Speaker 2: my business is failing. No, it wasn't. It was about
Speaker 2: the business stuff. Okay. So now, now Jojo comes from
Speaker 2: that show, right, they love her. He doesn't win it,
Speaker 2: but she's from that show. So they find her on
Speaker 2: Abby's Ultimate. I cut her. She was like the fourth
Speaker 2: one to go whatever, and they bring her on to
Speaker 2: Dance Moms.
Speaker 3: Uh.
Speaker 2: She was adorable. She's a pretty little girl. She was spunky,
Speaker 2: she could pick up pretty well, and she came into
Speaker 2: it knowing she was going to have to do a
Speaker 2: new dance every week. She had work on that picking up. Okay. So,
Speaker 2: now did I think she was a good fit for
Speaker 2: the group. No, because she wasn't a group dancer. She
Speaker 2: wanted to be the star. She was a soloist. You
Speaker 2: do her solo. It's phenomenal in the group, always off
Speaker 2: a little bit, okay, okay, and I'm looking for kids.
Speaker 2: Bethany I'm looking for students that are all the same height,
Speaker 2: that are all the same level, that are all right.
Speaker 1: She ended up making a meal out of it. She
Speaker 1: ended up being very successful in groups together.
Speaker 2: And I also want to make something perfectly clear for
Speaker 2: all of your viewers listeners. None of the kids had
Speaker 2: a contract, act none. The contracts were never affirmed through
Speaker 2: the court. When you do, when you because when you
Speaker 2: make a deal with the child, you have to affirm
Speaker 2: their documents through court as they're separate like an adult. Right,
Speaker 2: The moms had a contract. The kids were coming along.
Speaker 1: For the ride's house too. That's housewives, okay, But here
Speaker 1: the kids are a focal point way more, not until
Speaker 1: they're eighteen sixty three.
Speaker 2: I twisted that show around to make it about the kids.
Speaker 1: Of course, Well then you're the one who's responsible for
Speaker 1: them working versus being mad.
Speaker 2: I was not privy to this until years later when
Speaker 2: we were in LA. Had no clue, right, so I
Speaker 2: thought everything was up in the up and up. My
Speaker 2: weird world is Broadway in New York, not LA and
Speaker 2: film and television, you know. I took kids out there
Speaker 2: twenty five thirty years ago, and they didn't want to
Speaker 2: see them because they were from Pittsburgh and they could
Speaker 2: never get there time for an audition. They could never
Speaker 2: fly out that quick.
Speaker 1: Whatever have you followed their careers? Are you following Jojo?
Speaker 3: Now?
Speaker 1: How like? JoJo's got this new you know, everyone's talking
Speaker 1: about her and she's a little.
Speaker 2: More talked to her. I talked to her on the
Speaker 2: phone yesterday.
Speaker 1: Oh you did, and you have you have a good relationship?
Speaker 2: Absolutely?
Speaker 1: And do you love what she's doing? I mean she's
Speaker 1: she's entitled to like have changed her style, like she's
Speaker 1: People are giving her a lot of criticism about changing
Speaker 1: and she's coming out with a different type of you
Speaker 1: know product.
Speaker 2: You know what. I'm not the boss of her anymore.
Speaker 2: I'm not in charge of the choreography. I'm not in
Speaker 2: charge of her costume anything.
Speaker 1: Why didn't she push for you to be on that
Speaker 1: show together? If you guys have a good relationship now
Speaker 1: or it just evolved it got better?
Speaker 2: No, no, no, it's always been fine.
Speaker 3: She knows.
Speaker 2: She'll tell you she wouldn't be where she is today.
Speaker 2: She might be famous, it might be a star, but
Speaker 2: it would have been on some like Disney show or
Speaker 2: Nickelodeon show.
Speaker 1: It wouldn't have been, and you feel like she's grateful. Yes, great,
Speaker 1: that's okay. So do you take any accountability for all
Speaker 1: of this mess that I just read on paper? Do
Speaker 1: you take any responsibility like I besides like blaming the
Speaker 1: lawyers and blaming the networks and blaming the kids and
Speaker 1: blaming the moms, Like, do you personally take any responsibility
Speaker 1: for away fame?
Speaker 2: I don't blame any of the kids. You asked me
Speaker 2: why they didn't want me in the reunion? Paige sued
Speaker 2: me for five million dollars obviously got thrown out of
Speaker 2: court immediately. How does she look at me again knowing?
Speaker 1: Okay, I didn't even know that. Yeah, okay, okay, got it?
Speaker 2: Okay. So yeah, and they know I wasn't going to
Speaker 2: work for that network again anyway. Number three, and at
Speaker 2: the network, the producer Brian Stinson begged each one of
Speaker 2: the girls to call me on the phone to FaceTime me,
Speaker 2: and then he went after Jojo, you have to face
Speaker 2: the time out, but you have to FaceTime out. But
Speaker 2: they were trying to get me on camera on the show.
Speaker 2: Oh okay, my old makeup artist and hairdresser was there
Speaker 2: doing hair and makeup and screamed from the back room
Speaker 2: when she heard it for the twentieth time that day, said,
Speaker 2: will you a better payer in a parent's be if
Speaker 2: you're going a twitter on camera? And then it stopped.
Speaker 2: Got it.
Speaker 1: That's a loyal person.
Speaker 2: And then they shot the new show there's a new
Speaker 2: reboot of Dance Bumps that I'm not on. They shot
Speaker 2: that and asked me to be a judge at the
Speaker 2: big national fake Final competition that they planned to come
Speaker 2: and judge it. The producer Ryan Sinton called me so
Speaker 2: that they could get my face there on camera to
Speaker 2: use to promote the show like I was on it
Speaker 2: and live people for the first six weeks of that show,
Speaker 2: telling people it was the Dance BOMs Ruby and telling
Speaker 2: them that Abby Lee Miller was there to get kids
Speaker 2: there to compete against the show kids.
Speaker 1: So you've had an interesting ride, but you're still on
Speaker 1: the ride, and you're still teaching dance and you have
Speaker 1: new shows. So you're you are a cat with nine lives.
Speaker 2: It sounds like I'm very unlucky or I'm very lucky,
Speaker 2: depends on what day it is.
Speaker 1: Well, so you are cancer free, and did you go
Speaker 1: through you went through what did you did you do?
Speaker 1: Readly what you want to tell? You have your doctor
Speaker 1: on now?
Speaker 2: Yeah? Sure, I had ten rounds of chemo.
Speaker 1: Wow did you change your hair?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 1: Wow?
Speaker 2: I lost my life.
Speaker 1: You thought you were going to die?
Speaker 2: Blood pressure twenty three over seventeen. He'll talk about it, okay.
Speaker 2: By the way, not one kid, not one kid reached
Speaker 2: out except Jojo and some of the little ones that
Speaker 2: were in the next season. Nobody came to that hospital.
Speaker 2: Nobody called, not one mother. Jill was the only mom
Speaker 2: that sent Flowers to the hospital.
Speaker 1: Hi doctor, Hi doctor, how are you sir?
Speaker 2: Hi?
Speaker 3: Good morning guys? Are you guys or maybe good roping
Speaker 3: your time? I know where you guys are. But hello.
Speaker 1: So you've been working with Abby through her whole treatment.
Speaker 3: Yes, she looks. She looks amazing. I don't re recognize her.
Speaker 3: She looks amazing.
Speaker 1: What did you think the prognosis was going to be
Speaker 1: in the beginning?
Speaker 3: I was very you know, I remember like it was
Speaker 3: literally like it was yesterday. And I mean she she
Speaker 3: knows it too. She remembers like I told her we're
Speaker 3: going in now. I said, I don't know. We don't
Speaker 3: have the correct scan. Something is wrong, something doesn't make sense.
Speaker 3: Maybe it's a bad infection. When we got in there,
Speaker 3: it was crazy her like, I would say, her thoracic spine,
Speaker 3: which is like your mid back where you have twelve
Speaker 3: vertebrates on the bottom of the neck, about like twelve
Speaker 3: segments in her spine, which is unheard of. Everything was
Speaker 3: just this mass crushing her sminal cord like it's just
Speaker 3: it was like completing gold. Like she went from walking
Speaker 3: completely normal, everything totally fine within forty eight hours.
Speaker 1: What what were the symptoms?
Speaker 2: First I thought I had a sinus infection. Now, Bethany,
Speaker 2: this is I get out of prison. I'm driven. Everybody
Speaker 2: else's parents picked them up from prison, They go to lunch,
Speaker 2: they take them to the halfway house. It's all. Where
Speaker 2: was the prison Victorvale, California, out in the desert.
Speaker 1: On a one to ten, ten being torture and one
Speaker 1: being enjoyable. What was prison like?
Speaker 2: Seven eight?
Speaker 1: It was really shitty.
Speaker 2: Some of it the women I met and some of
Speaker 2: the I read one hundred and fifty books and I
Speaker 2: lost one hundred and twenty pounds.
Speaker 1: Wow, did you meet a lot of it? Did you
Speaker 1: meet anybody you're still friends with?
Speaker 2: Absolutely? Yes, you has good friends, yes, and they're out,
Speaker 2: wonderful friends. Yes, and they're out okay, yeah, and one
Speaker 2: of them works with me. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Oh wow. So she came out of prison and she
Speaker 1: came she went How soon after did.
Speaker 2: She go to you?
Speaker 3: Well? No, So what happened was she was having issues, right,
Speaker 3: she was having some issues, and the prison chip basically
Speaker 3: blowing your off and pain. Yeah. So yeah, that's actually
Speaker 3: a big problem. She was having issues, some thiray issues.
Speaker 3: They kept blowing your off, and then she was having
Speaker 3: neck pain. They kept saying, oh, you're doing this on purpose,
Speaker 3: you know, kind of.
Speaker 1: Like, oh, wow, I've never heard of that. That's crazy.
Speaker 3: Well, you know sometimes I know sometimes unfortunately people who
Speaker 3: go into these prison or halfway houses, I've seen like
Speaker 3: they want to fake something exactly, I've seen it. So
Speaker 3: but I think, no matter what, you got to investigate,
Speaker 3: you can just blow people off. You know.
Speaker 1: That's saying that's crazy. That's a legal matter too. I
Speaker 1: mean it's amazing. Wow. Okay, so she was having issues.
Speaker 3: There, yes, So they kept blowing your off and then
Speaker 3: she came to me excruciating neck pain. I remember it
Speaker 3: was on a Friday, and I'm telling her. You know,
Speaker 3: we got to get MRI right now, and she couldn't
Speaker 3: get the MRI because she was in too much pain.
Speaker 1: Oh my god.
Speaker 3: Yeah, she couldn't lay down. I said, okay, we're gonna
Speaker 3: admit you. That was Friday. Okay, we're gonna admit you
Speaker 3: on Friday. So we admitted her. We admitted her on Friday,
Speaker 3: and then we were trying to get the MRI, but
Speaker 3: she couldn't lay down because she needed to be sedation,
Speaker 3: you know, and they were not providing the sedation. So
Speaker 3: then basically there's another test called.
Speaker 1: This is a media out of prison.
Speaker 3: She came to you, yes, about like a couple of
Speaker 3: weeks out something like that. Okay, So then I remember
Speaker 3: we went admitted her to the hospital trying to get
Speaker 3: the MRI, but I wanted to get d MRI with sedation.
Speaker 3: And it's a whole like, it's a big deal to
Speaker 3: do MRI with sedation. You gotta, it's you got to
Speaker 3: set up anesthesia, you gotta. It's just it's just a
Speaker 3: lot of work, and a lot of hospitals may not
Speaker 3: be equipped to do it, you know, especially over the weekends.
Speaker 3: So I mean over the she was fine. So then
Speaker 3: on Sunday, she starts while we're waiting for this MRI.
Speaker 3: On Sunday, she starts kind of a little bit, uh,
Speaker 3: feeling something in her extremities. And then by Monday morning,
Speaker 3: literally overnight, she starts losing function, like out of I
Speaker 3: mean she went from walking everything Friday and Saturday to
Speaker 3: like Monday morning started.
Speaker 1: That's horrify, that's horrifying.
Speaker 3: Yeah, So Dan I was like, we got to do
Speaker 3: this test called the ct milogram. Ct monogram is a
Speaker 3: pretty invasive test, and you know it's not It wasn't
Speaker 3: the idea, but we had to have a choice. So
Speaker 3: we thought about transferring her to main seaters, and but
Speaker 3: we did a ct monogram. When the results came back,
Speaker 3: I remember the radiologists like came running to me. He's
Speaker 3: like it was like, at don't know, nine o'clock at night,
Speaker 3: eight o'clock, Like I don't know if something is wrong,
Speaker 3: like the whole spine like this all this segment, this
Speaker 3: whole segment is blocked. Like the guys, so I'm thinking
Speaker 3: this is infection. Oh my god. I said, we don't
Speaker 3: have time because if we did not take care to surgery,
Speaker 3: she did not have time like to go get MRI
Speaker 3: at another facility she would have been. I mean she was.
Speaker 3: Her blood pressure was going down and we're going to
Speaker 3: lose her. I was like, we're going searchery now.
Speaker 2: Much pressure was twenty three over seventeen.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, I'm like goose bombs right now, like
Speaker 3: talking about it. It is little emotional. We I remember
Speaker 3: it's midnight. I called my wife, I'm not coming home tonight.
Speaker 3: We got to take it to surgery. We're going in
Speaker 3: and we're up and I'm horrifying. I've never seen anything
Speaker 3: like this. I mean, for a a Burkett lymphoma, this
Speaker 3: cancer to.
Speaker 1: Grow what's it called? Because it's what's it called? Burkett
Speaker 1: Burkett lymphoma, Burkey.
Speaker 2: Today is the anniversary.
Speaker 1: You're saying it is rare, this thing Burkett lymphoma is rare,
Speaker 1: or what.
Speaker 3: She had rare, rare. It's usually seen in young African
Speaker 3: American kids.
Speaker 1: Okay, wow. So you had to then do twelve rounds
Speaker 1: of what is it? Twelve rounds twelve weeks?
Speaker 2: Have ten So I was impatient for seven days. Chemotherapy
Speaker 2: dripping spinal top lumbar injection where they go up the
Speaker 2: bottom of your tailbone into your brain where it goes
Speaker 2: around your brain.
Speaker 1: God, who was supporting you? Who was there family or
Speaker 1: friends or who was with you? You were alone every
Speaker 1: step of the way. That makeup and hair artist.
Speaker 2: Uh, a friend from a couple of friends from Pittsburgh
Speaker 2: and a friend from LA that I met at my
Speaker 2: dance studio. Not one of the moms.
Speaker 1: Wow, okay, So you were in the hospital for only
Speaker 1: seven days?
Speaker 2: No, no, no, seven days in now, I was transferred
Speaker 2: on a gurney laying down to California Rehabilitation Institute where
Speaker 2: I underwent physical therapy, occupational therapy, hand therapy. I was
Speaker 2: paralyzed from the neck down at this point.
Speaker 1: Oh my god, will you were you? What is your
Speaker 1: mental state? Your emotional state?
Speaker 2: Well, I remember in the hospital they told me that.
Speaker 1: For a dancer to be paralyzed alone, that you know
Speaker 1: that concept of choreographer. Yeah, so tell me again. Do
Speaker 1: you remember them telling you.
Speaker 2: I remember them telling me that. They tell me the
Speaker 2: story that I kept waking up saying, oh well, thank god,
Speaker 2: it's not cancer. Oh well, just don't tell me it's cancer.
Speaker 2: And they kept waking me up telling me it was cancer.
Speaker 2: And I would go back to sleep and wake up
Speaker 2: saying no because my mom. Yeah, my mom died phoning
Speaker 2: cancer and my dad died of geo cancer. So and
Speaker 2: I was only fifty eight. I never spent a night
Speaker 2: or fifty two.
Speaker 1: I never s it's cancer genetic like that. If your
Speaker 1: parents have two different types of cancer, then you were
Speaker 1: likely or it has nothing to do with it. It's it's, it's,
Speaker 1: it's it's unrelated.
Speaker 2: We have to doctor Piro.
Speaker 3: I don't know, you know, I mean, no, no, no.
Speaker 3: I think there is a genetic component to everything. But
Speaker 3: I believe also very importantly, we have the ability to
Speaker 3: modify our genes through what we do in our lifestyle.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well I endo that.
Speaker 3: So a lot of people think you're basically cursed by
Speaker 3: your genes and genetic some degree, that's true, but I
Speaker 3: do believe that now we know with what's called functional medicine,
Speaker 3: and I believe through your environment and your lifestyle, you
Speaker 3: have the ability to modify modify your genes.
Speaker 1: You're saying through just eating well and exercise, the things
Speaker 1: you're taking or what are you saying exactly all of
Speaker 1: the above.
Speaker 3: There are a lot of Look, it's very multi factor
Speaker 3: god health. We know through god health and a very
Speaker 3: holistic approach. We have the ability to help modify our
Speaker 3: genes and also don't exercise. And another key factor in
Speaker 3: all of this is controlling the stress in our environments
Speaker 3: and also other things around us. Like how much like
Speaker 3: metal toxicity? Like the air you breed in where you are,
Speaker 3: is there molding? There is there some heavy metal around
Speaker 3: a lot of people are ingesting things around them. They're
Speaker 3: not even awhere happening.
Speaker 1: Well, how are you obsessed everywhere you are? Because how
Speaker 1: do you live a life without thinking about everything?
Speaker 3: No? No, that's the point I just said. The stress
Speaker 3: is also the key thing, you know.
Speaker 1: So no, I'm saying the stress of thinking about every
Speaker 1: time you walk into a room as this room have
Speaker 1: mold or metals or No, you don't want.
Speaker 3: To like I don't. I don't want to let people
Speaker 3: don't to think like that about it. You know, you
Speaker 3: just want to be vigilant. You know, you just want
Speaker 3: to be vigilant. You know you control what you can't control, right,
Speaker 3: you know, so you call your nutrition, you can control
Speaker 3: your exercise, and you know you control your emotions with
Speaker 3: the stress where you meditate whatever it is. Yeah, you
Speaker 3: do all of that stuff. I think you're going to
Speaker 3: be okay, I think you're going to be able to
Speaker 3: modify your genes. And for example, you don't.
Speaker 1: You don't move next to said that, right, right, right, No,
Speaker 1: I don't know why it's reminding me that. But Lisa
Speaker 1: Werenna got in trouble for saying something about like stress
Speaker 1: causes cancer or something and like the or and like
Speaker 1: she got in actual trouble by the cancer Society saying
Speaker 1: that's not scientifically true.
Speaker 3: I don't think it's not trying to finish that.
Speaker 1: I'm just curious because I remember hearing her say that,
Speaker 1: which I've heard people say, and then she got like
Speaker 1: backlash for saying that.
Speaker 2: Here's the deal. I went from the prison to the
Speaker 2: halfway house. Okay, I was there for one week and
Speaker 2: this happened. But I went before I saw doctor Belamed.
Speaker 2: I went to six doctors in ten days, six.
Speaker 1: And you had been going and saying in prison that
Speaker 1: you were having pain.
Speaker 2: Yes, go home, honey and take it easy. You'll be fine.
Speaker 2: Then one doctor at an urgent care said the first
Speaker 2: one I went to, because I thought I had a
Speaker 2: signence in fact that I need a zepak. I went
Speaker 2: to the thing and she knew me from I had
Speaker 2: been there before, and she said, I think you're in
Speaker 2: a thyroid storm because you were taken off your thyroid
Speaker 2: medication and met Foreman for diabetes old turkey off.
Speaker 1: Of everyone had a different and then this chet and
Speaker 1: then this doctor is the only person who took you seriously, Yes,
Speaker 1: so amazing.
Speaker 2: But they had my blood work, she said, I've never
Speaker 2: seen blood results like this. It's nuts. Well, then why
Speaker 2: didn't you put me in an ambulance into the hospital
Speaker 2: from the urgent carry idiot? I might not be in
Speaker 2: a wheelchair if this would have happened.
Speaker 1: Is this this is not reversible? You're in a wheelchair forever?
Speaker 2: Now? Wow? Yeah?
Speaker 3: No?
Speaker 2: What what are you in?
Speaker 3: What?
Speaker 1: Why are you in a wheelchair?
Speaker 2: Specifically, because the the spinal cord was damaged and where
Speaker 2: it was damaged is most of it came back and
Speaker 2: some of it didn't. Like I don't feel like if
Speaker 2: you put a hot pan, frying pan on my thighs,
Speaker 2: I wouldn't feel.
Speaker 1: So, doctor, can this be haired? Can this be rehabilitated?
Speaker 3: I think there's a possibility, because there is now we know,
Speaker 3: like literally I just learned about it. In Mayo Clinic,
Speaker 3: they have a patience on the stem cell who was
Speaker 3: spinal cord injury, paralyzed from neck down for seven years,
Speaker 3: is walking now. Wow, Okay, I just literally I was
Speaker 3: going to actually, I know we're coming on, so I
Speaker 3: was saving it, you know, to tell in Mayo clinic
Speaker 3: right now they're doing the stem cell. I mean there,
Speaker 3: it's remarkable. So I think, I mean, for someone who
Speaker 3: has function quite a bit of function left, I think
Speaker 3: there's a good chance she can make good recovery. And
Speaker 3: the other issue I had is that I think her
Speaker 3: spinal cord was trying to make full recovery. But I
Speaker 3: think they in my opinion, I'm sorry, but I think
Speaker 3: they went overkilled with the chemo they did. She was
Speaker 3: no cancer, she had no cancer, and I remember they
Speaker 3: kept giving me her extra round, extra round.
Speaker 2: I'm like, I'm like, yeah, doctor Piro, Doctor Piro, who's
Speaker 2: my oncologist. He now, he snuck me out of one
Speaker 2: of the days I was going from chemo to physical rehab.
Speaker 2: He made me stop at his place to do a
Speaker 2: full pet scan on me to see where the can.
Speaker 1: That's such an interesting thing I've never yet just like
Speaker 1: selling past the point of yes, you did were cancer
Speaker 1: free and you were still doing that.
Speaker 2: I never heard either, well and not one cell of cancer,
Speaker 2: and yet I underwent seven more because.
Speaker 1: Oh my seven more? Wow, oh my god, the hot shot. No,
Speaker 1: that is point. I mean, that's like unnecessary poison in
Speaker 1: your body, I would assume, right, And.
Speaker 2: Again that's a doctor not listening to the patient.
Speaker 1: Wow are you How is your emotional state now? How
Speaker 1: is your mental emotional state now? Your Moraley?
Speaker 2: I live alone. I went from not being able to
Speaker 2: lift a fork up to living alone. I wish I
Speaker 2: could have full time care to travel with me and everything,
Speaker 2: but that money's on a lot of attorneys in Pittsburgh.
Speaker 2: And I think that. God, I think I lived okay,
Speaker 2: So I want to live good.
Speaker 1: You seem positive, like you do. You have to have
Speaker 1: a good attitude. You seem to have a good attitude.
Speaker 1: I don't know how long ago was.
Speaker 2: Did you leave prison in twenty and eighteen?
Speaker 1: So you haven't had a normal life quote unquote, not
Speaker 1: that your life before was normal, but you haven't had
Speaker 1: a normal physical life in six years.
Speaker 2: Yes, and this is the anniversary today of what today
Speaker 2: of the surgery? Wow?
Speaker 1: Okay, well it sounds like it can only get better
Speaker 1: from here if you are healthy and emotionally healthy and
Speaker 1: mentally healthy and also taking care of yourself. So yes,
Speaker 1: I what a shocking story. Wow, and doctor, thank you
Speaker 1: so much for coming on. And Abby, thank you for
Speaker 1: sharing the story. Wow, that's like a good car cautionary
Speaker 1: tale for people to listen to their bodies.
Speaker 2: Yes, women, you know I always say that women, you know,
Speaker 2: they take care of their husbands, they take care of
Speaker 2: their kids, they take care of their own parents. They
Speaker 2: don't take care of themselves.
Speaker 1: So that's a cautionary tale about all these things about
Speaker 1: the chemo, about what happened by now listening to your
Speaker 1: body and people not listening to you. And good on
Speaker 1: you to keep going to different doctors.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 2: They let me out of a hospital and eleven hours
Speaker 2: I was back in an ambulance with the same symptoms.
Speaker 1: That's a lawsuit right then, feeling alone because you live alone? Wow. Yes, well, Abby,
Speaker 1: it was so nice to meet you, and thank you
Speaker 1: so much for being open and having this conversation.
Speaker 2: I there's so much more. There's so much more about
Speaker 2: the kids in the DOVA and the things. I'm sure
Speaker 2: that you're friends with Cia. It was my dream to
Speaker 2: meet Sia. That never happened. But see us saw the show.
Speaker 1: She was a fan of the show.
Speaker 2: She watched the kids, and she reached out on social media.
Speaker 2: And they would have never even seen it if it
Speaker 2: wasn't for the social media girl that we hire that
Speaker 2: saw it and caught it. And I put my job
Speaker 2: on the line. I quit. You kept saying why didn't
Speaker 2: you quit, Why don you quit? I quit the show
Speaker 2: because they wouldn't let Mattie go. I quit. I said,
Speaker 2: you're done, get out of my studio. We're done if
Speaker 2: you don't let this kid go do this video.
Speaker 1: Oh that's amazing.
Speaker 2: Thank you for many reasons. I quit many times. For
Speaker 2: the kids. It was always on behalf of the children.
Speaker 2: They should remember that, but they were little. I guess
Speaker 2: who knows.
Speaker 1: Well, it seems like Jojo does and she's on a trajectory. Well. Amazing.
Speaker 1: Thank you so much, and thank you doctor. Have a
Speaker 1: great day much.
Speaker 3: Thank you guys, take care.
Speaker 2: Thank you. Bethany