The trailer for the official Dance Moms reunion just dropped — and it features a bunch of the OG cast coming together for the first time in 10 years.
Dance Moms: The Reunion will be released later this year, on May 1. The trailer sees former cast members JoJo Siwa, Chloe Lukasiak, Brooke Hyland, Paige Hyland, Kendall Vertes, and Kalani Hilliker discussing the ups and downs of their time on the controversial show, which aired between 2011 and 2019.
But since the trailer dropped, one particular moment has caused a stir online.
At one point, it seems as though JoJo shades some of the other former Dance Moms stars — like Maddie Ziegler, Mackenzie Ziegler, and Nia Sioux — for not partaking in the reunion.
For some important context, Dance Moms has widely been deemed problematic by viewers and critics in recent years, with several original cast members — some of whom were as young as six when they first appeared on the show — opening up about their negative experiences.
Back in 2022, Maddie outright described the show as “toxic,” while admitting that she’s “blocked out” so much of her childhood as a result.
“I’ve blocked out so much of my childhood that I actually don’t know what my life was like, even, just before working,” she said, adding that she no longer speaks to former dance teacher Abby Lee Miller, who infamously adopted a brutal approach when it came to instructing the kids.
Abby, now 58, would scream at the young girls during her intense dance classes and often made harsh comments about their appearances, leaving them in tears time and again.
Meanwhile, Nia, who currently attends UCLA, has opened up about how she’ll “probably” never reconcile with Abby.
“I’ve pretty much distanced myself for a while,” she told Us Weekly in 2018. A couple of years later, she wrote on TikTok, “You think you can hurt my feelings? I was the only Black girl on Dance Moms. And that’s on being bullied by the biggest bully in America. LMAO,” with viewers calling out the racist microaggressions that she faced on the show numerous times.
So, with this in mind, internet users weren’t pleased that JoJo — who joined Dance Moms during its fifth season — seemingly shaded the people who chose to skip the reunion.
In the trailer, Kendall says, “We would not be here without Dance Moms! It was literally the stepping stone into who we are today.” Afterward, JoJo says: “Them not being here is kinda like, ‘Let me erase my past, pretend it never happened, shove it down the drain,’ when it’s, like, that’s why you are who you are.”
Defending the missing cast members, one X (formerly known as Twitter) user wrote, “Maybe they just don’t want to revisit a toxic/abusive environment.”
“Those girls realized the abuse they went through as kids and don’t want to relive it. Nia with the micro aggressions and Maddie just constantly being worked to the bone for years,” another person added.
Someone else questioned, "Why is Jojo shading Maddie Kenzie and Nia for not being there? Sorry they don’t wanna relive their trauma and are focused on their peace."
"These people have literal trauma from this show. Why should they be forced to then talk about that especially in an environment that reminds them of that trauma.. Its [sic] such a selfish thing to say and also just so unnecessary," one user commented on YouTube. Another added, "I don’t blame the other young ladies that did not attend. Lifetime has capitalized enough from their childhood trauma."
“Just because they made something good out of it doesn’t mean they owe Abby or the show anything,” someone tweeted. “how dare they not want to relive their childhood trauma for a cheap lifetime check,” said another.
"Why would they want to show up when they’ve already spoken about how much they hated that environment, and how miserable the show them?" one more user questioned.