Speaker 1: You're listening to Jojo Sea Now with me Jojo Sia
Speaker 1: and iHeartRadio podcast and I might oh Australia Now that's
Speaker 1: a fun one. Normally I'm British. Anyways, Hello, and welcome
Speaker 1: back to Jojo Ciua Now where you get me unfiltered
Speaker 1: and ranting. Essentially, I feel like this obviously it's my podcast,
Speaker 1: but it truly feels more like it is my rant sessions,
Speaker 1: which I kind of love. I'm just gonna tell stories,
Speaker 1: get to talk to myself in a room full of
Speaker 1: myself looking at me, which honestly, like I don't I
Speaker 1: I don't believe that this is me, Like I know
Speaker 1: that it is, but like at some point in time,
Speaker 1: like this really was my life. Like I really did
Speaker 1: pose while wearing that. I really did have Bobo, I
Speaker 1: really did have these products. I really did wear that
Speaker 1: ponytail and wear that bow and own that like that.
Speaker 1: It just blows my mind, it really does, because I'm like,
Speaker 1: that to me is not me, but it is me,
Speaker 1: but it's not me. I don't know, I don't know.
Speaker 1: It's a very strange feeling. Anyways, today we are kind
Speaker 1: of going back to not necessarily how it started. For
Speaker 1: me and how I became a public human being. But
Speaker 1: something that I think really was detrimental to my career
Speaker 1: and was massive for me, which was Dance Moms. We
Speaker 1: had the Dance Longs reunion just happened, and the Dance
Speaker 1: Longs reunion. Ye know, I was a mixed bag of
Speaker 1: bones for me for sure, which I can go listen
Speaker 1: to my whole podcast or the Dance Moms reunion, but
Speaker 1: I Dance Moms as a whole is not a mixed
Speaker 1: bag of bones for me. It is the biggest blessing
Speaker 1: of my entire life. It is one of the things
Speaker 1: that I am most grateful for. Of course, there were
Speaker 1: hard days, but nothing that I couldn't handle and nothing
Speaker 1: that I didn't want to handle and want to have. Yeah,
Speaker 1: there was a lot of tears, a lot of blood,
Speaker 1: a lot of sweat, but look at where it got me,
Speaker 1: and it is a massive part of my career that
Speaker 1: I will always and forever be so freaking grateful for.
Speaker 1: Let's go way back. So I did Abby's also in
Speaker 1: Dance Competition, and that show is produced and on the
Speaker 1: same network as Dance Moms was, and AUDC wasn't as
Speaker 1: successful as Dance Moms, but it was a spinoff of
Speaker 1: the show, and so it was kind of the same umbrella, right,
Speaker 1: But at the end of the day Dance Moms, I
Speaker 1: mean it was everybody's school. I remember when Dance Moms
Speaker 1: came out. I was I was little, I would have
Speaker 1: been seven, and my mom was like, why are we
Speaker 1: not on this show? This is literally made for us.
Speaker 1: And it wasn't only my mom that was saying that,
Speaker 1: but it was also just like everyone that knew us
Speaker 1: was like, this is literally made for you. Why are
Speaker 1: you not on it? And we were like, we don't know.
Speaker 1: But at the time, I mean, we're just in Nebraska,
Speaker 1: live in life. Anyways, I'm gonna jump way ahead. So
Speaker 1: I finished Abby's Altman dance competition, got on that show
Speaker 1: by just submitting online and hoping for the best, and
Speaker 1: it ended up happening very crazy. But then my mom
Speaker 1: got a phone call. Is at a dance convention called Nouvo,
Speaker 1: and my mom got a phone call while I was
Speaker 1: in hip hop class. She stepped out to take it.
Speaker 1: She comes in, she grabs me and she's like, hey,
Speaker 1: that was the producer of Dance Moms. They want you
Speaker 1: there on Monday, and I was like, wait, Like it
Speaker 1: was Saturday at this point, and I was like, what
Speaker 1: do you mean they want me there on Monday? And
Speaker 1: she was like, it's only for a week. They just
Speaker 1: wanted to bring you in, bring you for a week,
Speaker 1: have fun, then you'll come back here and we'll keep
Speaker 1: living life. And I was like, oh my god, Like
Speaker 1: that was like winning a fucking oscar. Like going to
Speaker 1: Dance Moms for a week was the goal for every
Speaker 1: single dancer. Whether every single dancer wants to admit it
Speaker 1: or not, every dancer at some point in time wanted
Speaker 1: to be on Dance Moms. And it's it's become I
Speaker 1: guess a trend to say. Oh. I was like almost
Speaker 1: like to be too cool for it. No, Nope, at
Speaker 1: some point in time, every dancer, with the exception of
Speaker 1: those who didn't know about Dance Moms, if you knew
Speaker 1: about Dance Moms and you were a dnswer, you wanted
Speaker 1: to be on the show. Anyways, that's where we're at
Speaker 1: that I have to go on occasionally to hype up
Speaker 1: dance Moms. Always speaking of dance Moms, my dance mom
Speaker 1: just texted me. Should we see what she said? Should
Speaker 1: I expose this, let's see. Uh oh oh my god, fun. Wait,
Speaker 1: this is so exciting. I just got a deal with
Speaker 1: like literally one of my favorite people in the freaking
Speaker 1: world and we get to h oh. I wish I
Speaker 1: could spoil. I can't spoil just yet, but stay freaking dune.
Speaker 1: I'm so excited. Anyways, we go to Dance Moms for
Speaker 1: a week. This was We got the call to go
Speaker 1: on Saturday. They wanted me to fly out on Monday,
Speaker 1: which makes a lot of sense because Pyramid was on Wednesday,
Speaker 1: so we would kind of have a day to get
Speaker 1: settled and then do Pyramid on Wednesday for her Wednesday, Thursday,
Speaker 1: travel on Friday. I compete on Saturday. So got the
Speaker 1: call on Saturday, and that night went home from the
Speaker 1: dance convention and like started scrambling to find clothing, like
Speaker 1: cause I wanted to go and I wanted to make
Speaker 1: my impression, like I get one week, I will be
Speaker 1: doing my big one all freaking week. But we didn't know.
Speaker 1: We didn't know what to expect, right, didn't know if
Speaker 1: I was gonna be Danzig, didn't know if I was
Speaker 1: gonna be just like there did it, had no idea.
Speaker 1: So we get there and they actually they put us
Speaker 1: in an apartment complex and we end up leaving on Monday.
Speaker 1: We get there, they end up having us. I don't
Speaker 1: remember what happened on the Tuesday. Maybe we were just
Speaker 1: kind of settling in. But then Wednesday they were like,
Speaker 1: all right, your call time is like eight am or
Speaker 1: nine am, super early, and we're like, okay, where where
Speaker 1: And they were like McDonald's parking lot down the street
Speaker 1: from the studio, and like, at this point, I had
Speaker 1: never even been to the ALDC. But this was at
Speaker 1: season five of the show. I came on on season five,
Speaker 1: episode three, and so this was I should get that
Speaker 1: tattooed season five, episode three, S five e three. I'm
Speaker 1: doing it. That's happening because I will never hate that.
Speaker 1: I only get things tattooed that I know I will
Speaker 1: never hate or regret S five e three. I will
Speaker 1: never ever for Oh, that's sick. I'm gonna do that. Actually,
Speaker 1: I want to go get a tattoo so soon of
Speaker 1: my beast I make up from Karma. I'm I just
Speaker 1: don't know where officially I want it, but like I
Speaker 1: think it would be so sick. Anyways, not the point
Speaker 1: of this podcast. Point of this podcast is Dance Moms.
Speaker 1: We go to McDonald's parking lot. We sit there for
Speaker 1: approximately two hours. Then they were like, okay, come to
Speaker 1: the studio parking lot now, but you have to hide.
Speaker 1: So we're like ducked out in the car and the
Speaker 1: producers are coming in and out talking to us. And
Speaker 1: then finally, after like another two hours, like okay, come
Speaker 1: into the studio, but like just stay in the waiting room.
Speaker 1: Because the thing with Dance Moms is, now that I
Speaker 1: know how the show is, Pyramid was so unpredictable, right,
Speaker 1: and so they basically had me on standby till they
Speaker 1: were ready to bring me in and then all of
Speaker 1: a sudden, it was like nobody says I remember. There
Speaker 1: was a point in time actually where Maddie Kindall and
Speaker 1: Kilawney ran out to go to the restroom and I
Speaker 1: saw them and they saw me in the waiting room,
Speaker 1: and I was like, I freaked out, Like I had
Speaker 1: watched these girls my whole life on TV, like I
Speaker 1: loved them, I adored them. It's season five, so the
Speaker 1: show has had so much hype and I lost my mind.
Speaker 1: And they had known me from aud scenes and they
Speaker 1: were just nice girls. And so they were excited to
Speaker 1: see me, but it's like we couldn't talk to each other,
Speaker 1: and so I was like away from over the desk.
Speaker 1: It was cute. Anyways, I can like literally picture of
Speaker 1: that visual like it was yesterday. And then all of
Speaker 1: a sudden, the producer was like, all right, Jojo going
Speaker 1: to the studio. It's time, Like we'll tell you when
Speaker 1: we'll give you the key when Abby, says a guest,
Speaker 1: and then boom, I walked in and it was I
Speaker 1: I don't think I realized how much walking into that
Speaker 1: studio was going to change my life at the time,
Speaker 1: but boy freaking did it. I was only supposed to
Speaker 1: be on the show for week and then they really
Speaker 1: enjoyed my personality and they really enjoyed my mom's personality.
Speaker 1: And I guess I made good reality TV. I guess
Speaker 1: I gave them good shit because they kept me around
Speaker 1: then for two and a half years, three years, two
Speaker 1: and a half, two and a half years. I did
Speaker 1: all season five, all season six, and then a little
Speaker 1: little bit of season seven, or did I think that's right?
Speaker 1: I think that's right, a little bit of season seven.
Speaker 1: Our seasons were divided, so they were actually doubled season,
Speaker 1: so we had season five A five B, Season six
Speaker 1: A six B. I don't know why it was like that.
Speaker 1: I think so they could cram more episodes out of
Speaker 1: the contracts. But yeah, we freaking stayed and it was
Speaker 1: so fun. I mean it was so hard, don't get
Speaker 1: me wrong. But the things that you didn't see on
Speaker 1: Dance Moms. Us going to Crafty, which was like a
Speaker 1: little cooler and like a little bucket of snacks in
Speaker 1: the front lobby of the studio. Us taking class all
Speaker 1: night at ALDC after the show wrapped, us getting the
Speaker 1: smell of the studio. The fucking smell of ALDC is
Speaker 1: the most disgusting thing ever, but the most nostalgic smell.
Speaker 1: What I would give to smell. It smells like dirty
Speaker 1: socks bottom of a dance bag, Like actually nasty, but
Speaker 1: so good. And that is nothing that anybody control. It's
Speaker 1: a dance studio that is decades old, like it is
Speaker 1: going it's just gonna have that set engraved to it.
Speaker 1: But I mean, just so iconic. I remember tumbling classes
Speaker 1: were always so fun. I remember bus rides, Oh my god,
Speaker 1: bus rides were so fun. The first bus ride that
Speaker 1: I did all of the girls got out their MacBooks. Now,
Speaker 1: mind you, this is I was only eleven, So this
Speaker 1: was eight years ago. Nine years ago. Holy shit, nine
Speaker 1: years ago. Oh my god, that's crazy. Almost ten Wow,
Speaker 1: Oh my god, that's almost a decade ago. Wow, Okay,
Speaker 1: doesn't matter. Anyways, we got on bus for the first
Speaker 1: time and all the girls got out their MacBook. And
Speaker 1: eleven years ago, ten year old's twelve year olds did
Speaker 1: not have a MacBook. That was not a normal thing.
Speaker 1: And you know, I did it. I didn't have one.
Speaker 1: And so then the next day I told my mom,
Speaker 1: I was like, hey, like, is there any way I
Speaker 1: can get one? To be like the cool kids? Essentially,
Speaker 1: and because everyone would play games on them and I
Speaker 1: wanted to. I wanted to play too, but I just
Speaker 1: didn't have it. You know, we weren't set up like
Speaker 1: they were. So then we took my first check that
Speaker 1: I ever made from Dance Moms and we went and
Speaker 1: we bought a MacBook. And that is how I spent
Speaker 1: my very first check from Dance Moms. So worth it, uh,
Speaker 1: And then yeah, just from there, we moved out of
Speaker 1: the apartment complex. It was very weak by week so
Speaker 1: after week one, it was like, can you do another week?
Speaker 1: Of course I can do another week. It's fucking dance moms.
Speaker 1: I'll be here my whole life if you want me
Speaker 1: to be. And then after that was can you do
Speaker 1: another week? Can you do another week? Okay, we're gonna
Speaker 1: keep it out for two weeks, so like be prepared,
Speaker 1: it's gonna be two weeks. And so it was like
Speaker 1: calling my dad back home, like can you send more clothes?
Speaker 1: Can you send more bows? Can you send more shoes?
Speaker 1: And my mom had to go buy clothes, and it
Speaker 1: was very like we just had to keep it pushing
Speaker 1: and like keep playing it by ear, but like you
Speaker 1: didn't know, and so we kept doing that, We kept
Speaker 1: keeping it pushing, and then we finally ended up actually
Speaker 1: moving out of the apartment and we moved into because
Speaker 1: it just wasn't the right vibe. It wasn't like, it
Speaker 1: wasn't a very nice apartment, and so it was gonna
Speaker 1: be more convenient for us. It was far away, so
Speaker 1: it was gonna be more convenient for us to live
Speaker 1: actually in a hotel. So then I lived at the
Speaker 1: Double Tree for a couple of months actually, and then
Speaker 1: while I was on the show, kind of temporarily like
Speaker 1: kind of toying with my mind, and I gotta stay
Speaker 1: and I gotta leave. That's when the show started to
Speaker 1: transition to LA and we started to do two weeks
Speaker 1: in LA, four weeks in Pittsburgh, three weeks in LA,
Speaker 1: one week in Pittsburgh. We'd kind of go back and forth.
Speaker 1: And truthfully, all the Dance Momps casts I think enjoyed
Speaker 1: LA more because they were used to Pittsburgh. But for me,
Speaker 1: because I wasn't used to Pittsburgh, I enjoyed both. I
Speaker 1: liked filming in LA and of course I liked filming
Speaker 1: in Pittsburgh. Then I remember there was one week where
Speaker 1: we got back to Pittsburgh, and that is the week
Speaker 1: that I got my ALDC jacket. And this was hard.
Speaker 1: The way that Abby gave me my jacket was she
Speaker 1: had all the girls write down three things that they
Speaker 1: liked about me and three things that they didn't like
Speaker 1: about me. And a lot of people in the world
Speaker 1: have said, like, that's up. But here's the thing. I
Speaker 1: knew what was at the end of that tunnel, and
Speaker 1: I Abby is tough, but Abby is not cruel. There's
Speaker 1: a very very very fine line of tough and cruel,
Speaker 1: and she is not cruel, and she would not have
Speaker 1: everybody stand there and tell me that and then just
Speaker 1: move on with life. There was a light at the
Speaker 1: end of the tunnel, and I had been on the
Speaker 1: show now for a few weeks at this point, and
Speaker 1: I knew that she wasn't a cruel human being. I
Speaker 1: just knew that she was tough. And the reality is,
Speaker 1: anybody that's a dancer knows what a tough dance teacher
Speaker 1: is like. If you are a good dancer, you know
Speaker 1: what a tough dance teacher is like. We all have them.
Speaker 1: And truthfully, throughout my life, I've had dance teachers that
Speaker 1: were way tough around me than Abby was, and so
Speaker 1: that's why I was kind of almost trained to be
Speaker 1: able to handle it. Anyways, So I got my jacket then,
Speaker 1: and then I was an official member of the team.
Speaker 1: So then when we finally moved the show out to
Speaker 1: LA for good, I knew I was safe. I knew
Speaker 1: I wasn't gonna be going home unless, of course I
Speaker 1: wanted to. We did have a set therapist on Dance Moms.
Speaker 1: A lot of people don't know about this, wait a set.
Speaker 1: She was actually a psychiatrist. But she is an amazing
Speaker 1: human being. And she always told us girls like, if
Speaker 1: you want to leave, leave and I will handle it.
Speaker 1: You can leave at any point in time, and she
Speaker 1: she meant that, and she did have her ways that
Speaker 1: she was able to help us if we needed it.
Speaker 1: But luckily, I mean, I think during filming no one
Speaker 1: really needed it. We were always taken care of. As
Speaker 1: hard as it was, we were always taken care of.
Speaker 1: For some reason, since I started this podcast, the story
Speaker 1: that has been in my mind to tell everyone is
Speaker 1: Abby eating her baby back ribs on my sweatshirt. I
Speaker 1: don't know why this story has been circulating my head,
Speaker 1: but I just like, since I'm doing a Dance Moms podcast,
Speaker 1: I gotta tell stories that no one really knows about.
Speaker 1: So POV. We are in Australia actually for Dance Moms,
Speaker 1: and Australia was ka yaw dick. We did not know
Speaker 1: if Abby was coming at all. She had lost her passport.
Speaker 1: She's dramatic. We didn't know what was going on. It's
Speaker 1: very chaotic and uh, all of a sudden Abby shows up.
Speaker 1: It's all fine. We are at the ASTRA Awards. So
Speaker 1: we are. We are performing at that, and all of
Speaker 1: a sudden, it's our lunch break. We are down and
Speaker 1: Abby had ordered baby back ribs for her lunch, big
Speaker 1: old barbecue ribs. And I was wearing my pink Aldcla
Speaker 1: sweatshirt and Abby's all ribby and she's like, I need
Speaker 1: someone to wipe this on. She looks at me and
Speaker 1: she's like, give me your sweatshirt. And I was like, no,
Speaker 1: this is my favorite, and she's like, it's an ALDC sweatshirt.
Speaker 1: I will give you a new one, but I need
Speaker 1: someone to wipe my hands on. And so she wiped
Speaker 1: her hands and her mouth all over my ALDC pink sweatshirt.
Speaker 1: The best part about it is I still have that
Speaker 1: sweatshirt beefy ribs and all I was like, this is
Speaker 1: fucking iconic and I am never washing this. So I
Speaker 1: still haven't wrapped up in a baggy placed in my archives,
Speaker 1: so that way it just doesn't see the light of day.
Speaker 1: But it definitely has got Abby's beef juice on it.
Speaker 1: That sounds inappropriate. That did not mean that to sound inappropriate,
Speaker 1: but you know what I mean. That's the thing about
Speaker 1: dance moms is as hard of times as there was
Speaker 1: there's so many funny times to make up for it,
Speaker 1: so many good stories to make up for it, so
Speaker 1: many moments of accomplishments. I mean, I remember one of
Speaker 1: my hardest, hardest moments was when I forgot my solo
Speaker 1: on Dance Moms, And that was tough because it was
Speaker 1: my favorite solo that I have ever done and inspired
Speaker 1: by Miley Cyrus and I blanked on stage and then
Speaker 1: I remember after it was the first time, actually I
Speaker 1: thought Abby was gonna be so mad at me, but
Speaker 1: it was the first time that Abby actually comforted me
Speaker 1: and it was like it's okay, Like you know, you
Speaker 1: messed up, you're clearly upset with yourself, don't do it again,
Speaker 1: but like it's okay. And that for me was a
Speaker 1: monumental moment of like it is okay, I am human
Speaker 1: and that's that's totally fine. When the show moved out
Speaker 1: to LA, we really got to experience the best. The
Speaker 1: way Abby had her studio kind of changed the way
Speaker 1: studios are in LA. There's always been classes for professional dancers,
Speaker 1: but there's a lot of kid professional dancers and al
Speaker 1: DCLA was really what Malia Missed FaceTime called did I
Speaker 1: not say she was gonna try to call me back.
Speaker 1: Nailed it anyways. Abby made it okay for kids to
Speaker 1: come to those professional dancer style classes we used to
Speaker 1: have Thursday night hip hop with Guy Groove. There would
Speaker 1: be two hundred of us packed into that room like sardines.
Speaker 1: It was nuts. And some of the most professional dancers
Speaker 1: now that they're adults, were in those Thursday night classes
Speaker 1: with us, and it was so much fun. At the time.
Speaker 1: It wasn't necessarily a competitive studio, and then it became
Speaker 1: a competitive studio within like the first year, but it
Speaker 1: was just classes all day long and it was so
Speaker 1: freaking fun until about a year in and then we
Speaker 1: all got over it. No one wanted to train anymore.
Speaker 1: No everybody was over it. We all were like, fuck that,
Speaker 1: we'll do the show and then we'll leave. Me and
Speaker 1: Kelauny actually we used to lie about our interview times.
Speaker 1: We would joke around because we did interviews on Tuesday,
Speaker 1: Pyramid on Wednesday, rehearsal Thursday, Friday, travel on Friday, and
Speaker 1: then competition Saturday, and then we'd have Sunday to travel back,
Speaker 1: or we would just have Sunday Monday off and we
Speaker 1: always had Mondays off, but Klan and I on Tuesday
Speaker 1: at like four o'clock was ballet, and so we'd always
Speaker 1: be like, oh, we got the nighttime interviews. Sorry, we
Speaker 1: would literally have like the nine am interview. No, we
Speaker 1: would not care. We would be like, fuck that we
Speaker 1: ain't going to ballet, but then we'd go for the
Speaker 1: fun classes after. But it was always just so fun.
Speaker 1: We used to do school. We used to live right
Speaker 1: by the Grove. When we started filming in La they
Speaker 1: actually let Jill pick where we lived, and Jill wanted
Speaker 1: to live by the Grove in California, which is basically
Speaker 1: like nice little shopping plaza, so and we all live there.
Speaker 1: We'd walk over, we'd go to dinner together. I mean,
Speaker 1: we had so many just fun memories together. One of
Speaker 1: the hardest things for me is people trying to put
Speaker 1: in my head my experience on Dance Moms. People trying
Speaker 1: to tell me that I am traumatized from Dance Moms
Speaker 1: or that I am not okay because of what I
Speaker 1: went through on Dance Moms, and like, don't get me wrong,
Speaker 1: the shit that you saw was brutal, but you didn't
Speaker 1: see the good stuff, and the good stuff always made
Speaker 1: up for the brutal stuff. Every kid that is an athlete,
Speaker 1: that is good, that is talented, is going to go
Speaker 1: through some brutal shit with their coach, with their teacher,
Speaker 1: with their mentor because they know what it takes to
Speaker 1: get them to that good spot. I think the world
Speaker 1: is definitely changing where it's like you don't need you can,
Speaker 1: you can. What's the saying like progress with positivity. But
Speaker 1: at the same time, I always knew that anyone being
Speaker 1: hard on me had truly my best interest, And the
Speaker 1: reality of it is how you saying, joj all, have
Speaker 1: you all learned nothing? Which also that did come out
Speaker 1: of nowhere that was not deserved, that one did come
Speaker 1: out of nowhere, but that made it to the TV show.
Speaker 1: The good stuff never is gonna make it to the
Speaker 1: TV show because in all reality, we filmed sixty hours
Speaker 1: a week for Dance Moms and it's edited to forty
Speaker 1: two minutes. There's like barely anything is gonna make it.
Speaker 1: So of course all of the craziest moments are gonna
Speaker 1: make it, and things are gonna be edited so that
Speaker 1: way they make the most sense but also quickest. So
Speaker 1: that for me is something that I still struggle with online.
Speaker 1: I'm like, how is someone telling me that I should
Speaker 1: be talking about Dance Moms in one way? Because I
Speaker 1: do feel like a lot of people who are a
Speaker 1: part of the show don't enjoy talking about the show
Speaker 1: or don't enjoy it being a part of their life
Speaker 1: or their history, and for me, I'm the complete opposite.
Speaker 1: I am so fucking proud to have been a part
Speaker 1: of Dance Moms. I truly, truly love it. I am
Speaker 1: so grateful for it. I went into the show being
Speaker 1: a number one fan, and I came onto the show
Speaker 1: being a number one fan. I was on the show
Speaker 1: as a number one fan, and I left the show
Speaker 1: as a number one fan. When I left the show,
Speaker 1: no one really knew why. Honestly, I just literally did
Speaker 1: not show up to set the next day. To the
Speaker 1: TV show side of things, it looked like it was
Speaker 1: because of the ballet dance. And don't get me wrong,
Speaker 1: I was pissed about the ballet dance. It was not cool.
Speaker 1: We should not have done that, we should not have
Speaker 1: been in that position. However, what was really going on
Speaker 1: is I wanted to leave the show because I got
Speaker 1: another opportunity and the show said no to that. Other opportunity,
Speaker 1: and the network said no to that other opportunity, and
Speaker 1: so I was like, all right, I want to play ball.
Speaker 1: Let's play ball. And so we played ball, and I uh,
Speaker 1: I mean, there was a massive you could leave the
Speaker 1: show at any point in time, essentially, and uh. It
Speaker 1: was tough though, because I really enjoyed being a part
Speaker 1: of the show. And my mom used to say, like,
Speaker 1: just say the word and I'll take you back right now.
Speaker 1: And I was like, word is said, I want to
Speaker 1: go back right now. She's like, well, I didn't think
Speaker 1: you'd say that, so no, but it was it was
Speaker 1: hard because I loved it. I loved my friends. I
Speaker 1: didn't think my friends would still be friends with me
Speaker 1: if I wasn't on the show. I didn't know how
Speaker 1: the world was going to react. It was very tough
Speaker 1: because it was so real and it was all that
Speaker 1: I knew, you know what I mean, And it was
Speaker 1: everything got taken away from me. Not only was I
Speaker 1: not on the show, but my whole life, my personality
Speaker 1: I would dance after at the studio, all that was gone.
Speaker 1: And so it was a very tough choice to make.
Speaker 1: But at the end of the day, by a Landslide
Speaker 1: wasn't the right choice. I mean, my career would not
Speaker 1: be the same that it is if I wouldn't have
Speaker 1: left the show on that day, in that hour, and
Speaker 1: so very grateful for everything, and I'm very grateful that
Speaker 1: I ended Dance Moms the way that I did. And
Speaker 1: I there was a I wish we could remember who
Speaker 1: it was, but there was a cast member actually Dancing
Speaker 1: with the Stars who lived at the same apartment building
Speaker 1: that we did during Dance Moms, and my mom was
Speaker 1: talking to her being like, yeah, we just left Dance
Speaker 1: Mooms and it was kind of tough, but like because
Speaker 1: Jojo really loves it, but we ultimately it was the
Speaker 1: right choice for her career, and the cast of Dancing
Speaker 1: with the Stars girl told my mom something really good.
Speaker 1: She said, the best thing you can do is leave
Speaker 1: something while you still love it and because then you
Speaker 1: will never think ill of it, and that, I think,
Speaker 1: for me, is such a good thing. Dance Moms. I
Speaker 1: could have been there longer. I should have been there longer.
Speaker 1: I wanted to be there longer. But because I left
Speaker 1: when I did, I left on a high, not because
Speaker 1: I hated it, you know what I mean. It was
Speaker 1: I wanted to do both opportunity, but the network that
Speaker 1: I was with didn't want me to do it, and
Speaker 1: so I had to pick which opportunity was better for me.
Speaker 1: And at the end of the day, it was not
Speaker 1: Dance Moms, which was just I mean, it was tough,
Speaker 1: but it was the right choice. And so I think
Speaker 1: leaving Dance Moms, while I still loved it, was the
Speaker 1: best thing ever. And I do still love it. One
Speaker 1: of my biggest favorite flexes in the world is that
Speaker 1: I actually own one of the most iconic memorabilia physical
Speaker 1: items from Dance Moms. Early on, Jill gave Abby a
Speaker 1: bench that said too Abby loved Jill and Kendall, and
Speaker 1: she gave it to it because she was a kiss ass.
Speaker 1: But I actually bought that bench. They auctioned it off
Speaker 1: for Dances Dance Cancer, which is an incredible charity that
Speaker 1: I'm actually a board member of. But I and just
Speaker 1: I've worked with my whole life. They helped my grandmother,
Speaker 1: They actually helped Abby Lee. They are an amazing foundation.
Speaker 1: They were actually off that bench and I was like,
Speaker 1: absolutely best twelve grand ever spent in my life. And
Speaker 1: now it just sits in the back of my studio.
Speaker 1: People when they see it, they lose their minds because, like,
Speaker 1: if you know Dance Moms, you know that bench. But yeah,
Speaker 1: no one. I don't have an out on display because
Speaker 1: I don't want anything to happen to it, so I
Speaker 1: just kind of keep it hidden. But that is my
Speaker 1: like when I tell you I'm the number one fan,
Speaker 1: I am literally the number one fan of the show. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's kind of a little bit of a dance BOM's
Speaker 1: fun little BTS deep dive talking about the experience just
Speaker 1: a little bit. God, I feel like I could do
Speaker 1: fifty parts to this, but you got a day to
Speaker 1: get along with. I got a day to get along with.
Speaker 1: And uh, you know, as much as I love to
Speaker 1: keep chatting your ear off for forever, I feel like
Speaker 1: I should leave room for part two or part three
Speaker 1: to this one. I love y'all. Thank you so much
Speaker 1: for listening, and be sure you go stream the Dance
Speaker 1: Moms reunion now or don't. Honestly, I can't tell you
Speaker 1: what to do. I love y'all. Peace, Thank you so
Speaker 1: much for listening. Everybody, be sure to follow us on
Speaker 1: Instagram and TikTok at JOJOESIUA now podcast, Be sure to
Speaker 1: write us a review and maybe if you're feelna leave
Speaker 1: us five stars, I'll see you next week.