Dance Moms: The Journey

You've seen Dance Moms, but what do you really know about it? JoJo gives us every detail of her experience on the iconic T.V. show... highlighting the good, the bad and the ugly. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
You're listening to Jojo Sea Now with me Jojo Sia
and iHeartRadio podcast and I might oh Australia Now that's
a fun one. Normally I'm British. Anyways, Hello, and welcome
back to Jojo Ciua Now where you get me unfiltered
and ranting. Essentially, I feel like this obviously it's my podcast,

(00:24):
but it truly feels more like it is my rant sessions,
which I kind of love. I'm just gonna tell stories,
get to talk to myself in a room full of
myself looking at me, which honestly, like I don't I
I don't believe that this is me, Like I know
that it is, but like at some point in time,

(00:44):
like this really was my life. Like I really did
pose while wearing that. I really did have Bobo, I
really did have these products. I really did wear that
ponytail and wear that bow and own that like that.
It just blows my mind, it really does, because I'm like,
that to me is not me, but it is me,

(01:05):
but it's not me. I don't know, I don't know.
It's a very strange feeling. Anyways, today we are kind
of going back to not necessarily how it started. For
me and how I became a public human being. But
something that I think really was detrimental to my career
and was massive for me, which was Dance Moms. We

(01:27):
had the Dance Longs reunion just happened, and the Dance
Longs reunion. Ye know, I was a mixed bag of
bones for me for sure, which I can go listen
to my whole podcast or the Dance Moms reunion, but
I Dance Moms as a whole is not a mixed
bag of bones for me. It is the biggest blessing

(01:49):
of my entire life. It is one of the things
that I am most grateful for. Of course, there were
hard days, but nothing that I couldn't handle and nothing
that I didn't want to handle and want to have. Yeah,
there was a lot of tears, a lot of blood,
a lot of sweat, but look at where it got me,
and it is a massive part of my career that
I will always and forever be so freaking grateful for.

(02:15):
Let's go way back. So I did Abby's also in
Dance Competition, and that show is produced and on the
same network as Dance Moms was, and AUDC wasn't as
successful as Dance Moms, but it was a spinoff of
the show, and so it was kind of the same umbrella, right,
But at the end of the day Dance Moms, I

(02:37):
mean it was everybody's school. I remember when Dance Moms
came out. I was I was little, I would have
been seven, and my mom was like, why are we
not on this show? This is literally made for us.
And it wasn't only my mom that was saying that,
but it was also just like everyone that knew us
was like, this is literally made for you. Why are
you not on it? And we were like, we don't know.
But at the time, I mean, we're just in Nebraska,

(02:59):
live in life. Anyways, I'm gonna jump way ahead. So
I finished Abby's Altman dance competition, got on that show
by just submitting online and hoping for the best, and
it ended up happening very crazy. But then my mom
got a phone call. Is at a dance convention called Nouvo,
and my mom got a phone call while I was
in hip hop class. She stepped out to take it.

(03:21):
She comes in, she grabs me and she's like, hey,
that was the producer of Dance Moms. They want you
there on Monday, and I was like, wait, Like it
was Saturday at this point, and I was like, what
do you mean they want me there on Monday? And
she was like, it's only for a week. They just
wanted to bring you in, bring you for a week,
have fun, then you'll come back here and we'll keep
living life. And I was like, oh my god, Like

(03:41):
that was like winning a fucking oscar. Like going to
Dance Moms for a week was the goal for every
single dancer. Whether every single dancer wants to admit it
or not, every dancer at some point in time wanted
to be on Dance Moms. And it's it's become I
guess a trend to say. Oh. I was like almost
like to be too cool for it. No, Nope, at

(04:01):
some point in time, every dancer, with the exception of
those who didn't know about Dance Moms, if you knew
about Dance Moms and you were a dnswer, you wanted
to be on the show. Anyways, that's where we're at
that I have to go on occasionally to hype up
dance Moms. Always speaking of dance Moms, my dance mom
just texted me. Should we see what she said? Should
I expose this, let's see. Uh oh oh my god, fun. Wait,

(04:27):
this is so exciting. I just got a deal with
like literally one of my favorite people in the freaking
world and we get to h oh. I wish I
could spoil. I can't spoil just yet, but stay freaking dune.
I'm so excited. Anyways, we go to Dance Moms for
a week. This was We got the call to go

(04:48):
on Saturday. They wanted me to fly out on Monday,
which makes a lot of sense because Pyramid was on Wednesday,
so we would kind of have a day to get
settled and then do Pyramid on Wednesday for her Wednesday, Thursday,
travel on Friday. I compete on Saturday. So got the
call on Saturday, and that night went home from the
dance convention and like started scrambling to find clothing, like

(05:10):
cause I wanted to go and I wanted to make
my impression, like I get one week, I will be
doing my big one all freaking week. But we didn't know.
We didn't know what to expect, right, didn't know if
I was gonna be Danzig, didn't know if I was
gonna be just like there did it, had no idea.
So we get there and they actually they put us
in an apartment complex and we end up leaving on Monday.

(05:34):
We get there, they end up having us. I don't
remember what happened on the Tuesday. Maybe we were just
kind of settling in. But then Wednesday they were like,
all right, your call time is like eight am or
nine am, super early, and we're like, okay, where where
And they were like McDonald's parking lot down the street
from the studio, and like, at this point, I had
never even been to the ALDC. But this was at

(05:55):
season five of the show. I came on on season five,
episode three, and so this was I should get that
tattooed season five, episode three, S five e three. I'm
doing it. That's happening because I will never hate that.
I only get things tattooed that I know I will
never hate or regret S five e three. I will
never ever for Oh, that's sick. I'm gonna do that. Actually,

(06:18):
I want to go get a tattoo so soon of
my beast I make up from Karma. I'm I just
don't know where officially I want it, but like I
think it would be so sick. Anyways, not the point
of this podcast. Point of this podcast is Dance Moms.
We go to McDonald's parking lot. We sit there for
approximately two hours. Then they were like, okay, come to

(06:40):
the studio parking lot now, but you have to hide.
So we're like ducked out in the car and the
producers are coming in and out talking to us. And
then finally, after like another two hours, like okay, come
into the studio, but like just stay in the waiting room.
Because the thing with Dance Moms is, now that I
know how the show is, Pyramid was so unpredictable, right,
and so they basically had me on standby till they

(07:00):
were ready to bring me in and then all of
a sudden, it was like nobody says I remember. There
was a point in time actually where Maddie Kindall and
Kilawney ran out to go to the restroom and I
saw them and they saw me in the waiting room,
and I was like, I freaked out, Like I had
watched these girls my whole life on TV, like I
loved them, I adored them. It's season five, so the

(07:22):
show has had so much hype and I lost my mind.
And they had known me from aud scenes and they
were just nice girls. And so they were excited to
see me, but it's like we couldn't talk to each other,
and so I was like away from over the desk.
It was cute. Anyways, I can like literally picture of
that visual like it was yesterday. And then all of
a sudden, the producer was like, all right, Jojo going
to the studio. It's time, Like we'll tell you when

(07:44):
we'll give you the key when Abby, says a guest,
and then boom, I walked in and it was I
I don't think I realized how much walking into that
studio was going to change my life at the time,
but boy freaking did it. I was only supposed to
be on the show for week and then they really
enjoyed my personality and they really enjoyed my mom's personality.

(08:06):
And I guess I made good reality TV. I guess
I gave them good shit because they kept me around
then for two and a half years, three years, two
and a half, two and a half years. I did
all season five, all season six, and then a little
little bit of season seven, or did I think that's right?
I think that's right, a little bit of season seven.

(08:27):
Our seasons were divided, so they were actually doubled season,
so we had season five A five B, Season six
A six B. I don't know why it was like that.
I think so they could cram more episodes out of
the contracts. But yeah, we freaking stayed and it was
so fun. I mean it was so hard, don't get

(08:49):
me wrong. But the things that you didn't see on
Dance Moms. Us going to Crafty, which was like a
little cooler and like a little bucket of snacks in
the front lobby of the studio. Us taking class all
night at ALDC after the show wrapped, us getting the
smell of the studio. The fucking smell of ALDC is

(09:09):
the most disgusting thing ever, but the most nostalgic smell.
What I would give to smell. It smells like dirty
socks bottom of a dance bag, Like actually nasty, but
so good. And that is nothing that anybody control. It's
a dance studio that is decades old, like it is
going it's just gonna have that set engraved to it.
But I mean, just so iconic. I remember tumbling classes

(09:32):
were always so fun. I remember bus rides, Oh my god,
bus rides were so fun. The first bus ride that
I did all of the girls got out their MacBooks. Now,
mind you, this is I was only eleven, So this
was eight years ago. Nine years ago. Holy shit, nine
years ago. Oh my god, that's crazy. Almost ten Wow,

(09:53):
Oh my god, that's almost a decade ago. Wow, Okay,
doesn't matter. Anyways, we got on bus for the first
time and all the girls got out their MacBook. And
eleven years ago, ten year old's twelve year olds did
not have a MacBook. That was not a normal thing.
And you know, I did it. I didn't have one.
And so then the next day I told my mom,
I was like, hey, like, is there any way I

(10:15):
can get one? To be like the cool kids? Essentially,
and because everyone would play games on them and I
wanted to. I wanted to play too, but I just
didn't have it. You know, we weren't set up like
they were. So then we took my first check that
I ever made from Dance Moms and we went and
we bought a MacBook. And that is how I spent
my very first check from Dance Moms. So worth it, uh,

(10:36):
And then yeah, just from there, we moved out of
the apartment complex. It was very weak by week so
after week one, it was like, can you do another week?
Of course I can do another week. It's fucking dance moms.
I'll be here my whole life if you want me
to be. And then after that was can you do
another week? Can you do another week? Okay, we're gonna
keep it out for two weeks, so like be prepared,
it's gonna be two weeks. And so it was like
calling my dad back home, like can you send more clothes?

(10:58):
Can you send more bows? Can you send more shoes?
And my mom had to go buy clothes, and it
was very like we just had to keep it pushing
and like keep playing it by ear, but like you
didn't know, and so we kept doing that, We kept
keeping it pushing, and then we finally ended up actually
moving out of the apartment and we moved into because
it just wasn't the right vibe. It wasn't like, it
wasn't a very nice apartment, and so it was gonna

(11:21):
be more convenient for us. It was far away, so
it was gonna be more convenient for us to live
actually in a hotel. So then I lived at the
Double Tree for a couple of months actually, and then
while I was on the show, kind of temporarily like
kind of toying with my mind, and I gotta stay
and I gotta leave. That's when the show started to
transition to LA and we started to do two weeks

(11:43):
in LA, four weeks in Pittsburgh, three weeks in LA,
one week in Pittsburgh. We'd kind of go back and forth.
And truthfully, all the Dance Momps casts I think enjoyed
LA more because they were used to Pittsburgh. But for me,
because I wasn't used to Pittsburgh, I enjoyed both. I
liked filming in LA and of course I liked filming
in Pittsburgh. Then I remember there was one week where

(12:09):
we got back to Pittsburgh, and that is the week
that I got my ALDC jacket. And this was hard.
The way that Abby gave me my jacket was she
had all the girls write down three things that they
liked about me and three things that they didn't like
about me. And a lot of people in the world
have said, like, that's up. But here's the thing. I

(12:34):
knew what was at the end of that tunnel, and
I Abby is tough, but Abby is not cruel. There's
a very very very fine line of tough and cruel,
and she is not cruel, and she would not have
everybody stand there and tell me that and then just

(12:54):
move on with life. There was a light at the
end of the tunnel, and I had been on the
show now for a few weeks at this point, and
I knew that she wasn't a cruel human being. I
just knew that she was tough. And the reality is,
anybody that's a dancer knows what a tough dance teacher
is like. If you are a good dancer, you know

(13:14):
what a tough dance teacher is like. We all have them.
And truthfully, throughout my life, I've had dance teachers that
were way tough around me than Abby was, and so
that's why I was kind of almost trained to be
able to handle it. Anyways, So I got my jacket then,
and then I was an official member of the team.
So then when we finally moved the show out to
LA for good, I knew I was safe. I knew

(13:35):
I wasn't gonna be going home unless, of course I
wanted to. We did have a set therapist on Dance Moms.
A lot of people don't know about this, wait a set.
She was actually a psychiatrist. But she is an amazing
human being. And she always told us girls like, if
you want to leave, leave and I will handle it.
You can leave at any point in time, and she
she meant that, and she did have her ways that

(13:56):
she was able to help us if we needed it.
But luckily, I mean, I think during filming no one
really needed it. We were always taken care of. As
hard as it was, we were always taken care of.
For some reason, since I started this podcast, the story
that has been in my mind to tell everyone is
Abby eating her baby back ribs on my sweatshirt. I

(14:17):
don't know why this story has been circulating my head,
but I just like, since I'm doing a Dance Moms podcast,
I gotta tell stories that no one really knows about.
So POV. We are in Australia actually for Dance Moms,
and Australia was ka yaw dick. We did not know
if Abby was coming at all. She had lost her passport.
She's dramatic. We didn't know what was going on. It's

(14:38):
very chaotic and uh, all of a sudden Abby shows up.
It's all fine. We are at the ASTRA Awards. So
we are. We are performing at that, and all of
a sudden, it's our lunch break. We are down and
Abby had ordered baby back ribs for her lunch, big
old barbecue ribs. And I was wearing my pink Aldcla

(15:02):
sweatshirt and Abby's all ribby and she's like, I need
someone to wipe this on. She looks at me and
she's like, give me your sweatshirt. And I was like, no,
this is my favorite, and she's like, it's an ALDC sweatshirt.
I will give you a new one, but I need
someone to wipe my hands on. And so she wiped
her hands and her mouth all over my ALDC pink sweatshirt.
The best part about it is I still have that

(15:25):
sweatshirt beefy ribs and all I was like, this is
fucking iconic and I am never washing this. So I
still haven't wrapped up in a baggy placed in my archives,
so that way it just doesn't see the light of day.
But it definitely has got Abby's beef juice on it.
That sounds inappropriate. That did not mean that to sound inappropriate,
but you know what I mean. That's the thing about

(15:48):
dance moms is as hard of times as there was
there's so many funny times to make up for it,
so many good stories to make up for it, so
many moments of accomplishments. I mean, I remember one of
my hardest, hardest moments was when I forgot my solo
on Dance Moms, And that was tough because it was
my favorite solo that I have ever done and inspired

(16:10):
by Miley Cyrus and I blanked on stage and then
I remember after it was the first time, actually I
thought Abby was gonna be so mad at me, but
it was the first time that Abby actually comforted me
and it was like it's okay, Like you know, you
messed up, you're clearly upset with yourself, don't do it again,
but like it's okay. And that for me was a
monumental moment of like it is okay, I am human
and that's that's totally fine. When the show moved out

(16:34):
to LA, we really got to experience the best. The
way Abby had her studio kind of changed the way
studios are in LA. There's always been classes for professional dancers,
but there's a lot of kid professional dancers and al
DCLA was really what Malia Missed FaceTime called did I

(16:55):
not say she was gonna try to call me back.
Nailed it anyways. Abby made it okay for kids to
come to those professional dancer style classes we used to
have Thursday night hip hop with Guy Groove. There would
be two hundred of us packed into that room like sardines.
It was nuts. And some of the most professional dancers

(17:16):
now that they're adults, were in those Thursday night classes
with us, and it was so much fun. At the time.
It wasn't necessarily a competitive studio, and then it became
a competitive studio within like the first year, but it
was just classes all day long and it was so
freaking fun until about a year in and then we

(17:36):
all got over it. No one wanted to train anymore.
No everybody was over it. We all were like, fuck that,
we'll do the show and then we'll leave. Me and
Kelauny actually we used to lie about our interview times.
We would joke around because we did interviews on Tuesday,
Pyramid on Wednesday, rehearsal Thursday, Friday, travel on Friday, and
then competition Saturday, and then we'd have Sunday to travel back,

(17:59):
or we would just have Sunday Monday off and we
always had Mondays off, but Klan and I on Tuesday
at like four o'clock was ballet, and so we'd always
be like, oh, we got the nighttime interviews. Sorry, we
would literally have like the nine am interview. No, we
would not care. We would be like, fuck that we
ain't going to ballet, but then we'd go for the
fun classes after. But it was always just so fun.

(18:22):
We used to do school. We used to live right
by the Grove. When we started filming in La they
actually let Jill pick where we lived, and Jill wanted
to live by the Grove in California, which is basically
like nice little shopping plaza, so and we all live there.
We'd walk over, we'd go to dinner together. I mean,
we had so many just fun memories together. One of

(18:46):
the hardest things for me is people trying to put
in my head my experience on Dance Moms. People trying
to tell me that I am traumatized from Dance Moms
or that I am not okay because of what I
went through on Dance Moms, and like, don't get me wrong,
the shit that you saw was brutal, but you didn't
see the good stuff, and the good stuff always made
up for the brutal stuff. Every kid that is an athlete,

(19:09):
that is good, that is talented, is going to go
through some brutal shit with their coach, with their teacher,
with their mentor because they know what it takes to
get them to that good spot. I think the world
is definitely changing where it's like you don't need you can,
you can. What's the saying like progress with positivity. But
at the same time, I always knew that anyone being

(19:29):
hard on me had truly my best interest, And the
reality of it is how you saying, joj all, have
you all learned nothing? Which also that did come out
of nowhere that was not deserved, that one did come
out of nowhere, but that made it to the TV show.
The good stuff never is gonna make it to the
TV show because in all reality, we filmed sixty hours
a week for Dance Moms and it's edited to forty

(19:51):
two minutes. There's like barely anything is gonna make it.
So of course all of the craziest moments are gonna
make it, and things are gonna be edited so that
way they make the most sense but also quickest. So
that for me is something that I still struggle with online.

(20:12):
I'm like, how is someone telling me that I should
be talking about Dance Moms in one way? Because I
do feel like a lot of people who are a
part of the show don't enjoy talking about the show
or don't enjoy it being a part of their life
or their history, and for me, I'm the complete opposite.
I am so fucking proud to have been a part
of Dance Moms. I truly, truly love it. I am

(20:36):
so grateful for it. I went into the show being
a number one fan, and I came onto the show
being a number one fan. I was on the show
as a number one fan, and I left the show
as a number one fan. When I left the show,
no one really knew why. Honestly, I just literally did
not show up to set the next day. To the
TV show side of things, it looked like it was
because of the ballet dance. And don't get me wrong,

(20:56):
I was pissed about the ballet dance. It was not cool.
We should not have done that, we should not have
been in that position. However, what was really going on
is I wanted to leave the show because I got
another opportunity and the show said no to that. Other opportunity,
and the network said no to that other opportunity, and
so I was like, all right, I want to play ball.
Let's play ball. And so we played ball, and I uh,

(21:18):
I mean, there was a massive you could leave the
show at any point in time, essentially, and uh. It
was tough though, because I really enjoyed being a part
of the show. And my mom used to say, like,
just say the word and I'll take you back right now.
And I was like, word is said, I want to
go back right now. She's like, well, I didn't think
you'd say that, so no, but it was it was
hard because I loved it. I loved my friends. I

(21:39):
didn't think my friends would still be friends with me
if I wasn't on the show. I didn't know how
the world was going to react. It was very tough
because it was so real and it was all that
I knew, you know what I mean, And it was
everything got taken away from me. Not only was I
not on the show, but my whole life, my personality
I would dance after at the studio, all that was gone.
And so it was a very tough choice to make.

(22:02):
But at the end of the day, by a Landslide
wasn't the right choice. I mean, my career would not
be the same that it is if I wouldn't have
left the show on that day, in that hour, and
so very grateful for everything, and I'm very grateful that
I ended Dance Moms the way that I did. And
I there was a I wish we could remember who
it was, but there was a cast member actually Dancing

(22:22):
with the Stars who lived at the same apartment building
that we did during Dance Moms, and my mom was
talking to her being like, yeah, we just left Dance
Mooms and it was kind of tough, but like because
Jojo really loves it, but we ultimately it was the
right choice for her career, and the cast of Dancing
with the Stars girl told my mom something really good.
She said, the best thing you can do is leave
something while you still love it and because then you

(22:44):
will never think ill of it, and that, I think,
for me, is such a good thing. Dance Moms. I
could have been there longer. I should have been there longer.
I wanted to be there longer. But because I left
when I did, I left on a high, not because
I hated it, you know what I mean. It was
I wanted to do both opportunity, but the network that
I was with didn't want me to do it, and
so I had to pick which opportunity was better for me.

(23:06):
And at the end of the day, it was not
Dance Moms, which was just I mean, it was tough,
but it was the right choice. And so I think
leaving Dance Moms, while I still loved it, was the
best thing ever. And I do still love it. One
of my biggest favorite flexes in the world is that
I actually own one of the most iconic memorabilia physical

(23:30):
items from Dance Moms. Early on, Jill gave Abby a
bench that said too Abby loved Jill and Kendall, and
she gave it to it because she was a kiss ass.
But I actually bought that bench. They auctioned it off
for Dances Dance Cancer, which is an incredible charity that
I'm actually a board member of. But I and just
I've worked with my whole life. They helped my grandmother,

(23:50):
They actually helped Abby Lee. They are an amazing foundation.
They were actually off that bench and I was like,
absolutely best twelve grand ever spent in my life. And
now it just sits in the back of my studio.
People when they see it, they lose their minds because, like,
if you know Dance Moms, you know that bench. But yeah,
no one. I don't have an out on display because

(24:11):
I don't want anything to happen to it, so I
just kind of keep it hidden. But that is my
like when I tell you I'm the number one fan,
I am literally the number one fan of the show. Yeah,
that's kind of a little bit of a dance BOM's
fun little BTS deep dive talking about the experience just
a little bit. God, I feel like I could do
fifty parts to this, but you got a day to
get along with. I got a day to get along with.

(24:33):
And uh, you know, as much as I love to
keep chatting your ear off for forever, I feel like
I should leave room for part two or part three
to this one. I love y'all. Thank you so much
for listening, and be sure you go stream the Dance
Moms reunion now or don't. Honestly, I can't tell you
what to do. I love y'all. Peace, Thank you so
much for listening. Everybody, be sure to follow us on

(24:55):
Instagram and TikTok at JOJOESIUA now podcast, Be sure to
write us a review and maybe if you're feelna leave
us five stars, I'll see you next week.