'Dance Moms' News 2014: Critic Says The Show Is Exploiting 11-Year-Old Maddie Ziegler [VIDEO]
Talented dancer Maddie Ziegler might be one of the biggest break out stars of Lifetime's hit reality show Dance Moms, but according to critics, she might also be one of the most exploited dancers on the show, too.
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Writer Jennifer Gerson Uffalussy of The Guardian says Ziegler's stint on Dance Moms has "transformed" the talented pint-sized dancer to lifelong "reality TV player." And according to Uffalussy, that's not necessarily a good thing.
Uffalussy says that reality stars such as Ziegler might have a difficult time to grasp with their own reality once their lifeline on the small screen comes to an end one day.
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"Her performance is haunting and dynamic, terrifying in its energy and restraint," Uffalussry writes. "Ziegler transforms not simply into a dazzling stand-in for the pop icon, but into a performer who has transcended the label of 'reality star.' In Chandelier, Ziegler is significant as an artist in her own right, no longer a necessary archetype - the success-obsessed young performer - of the reality canon."
Meanwhile, Ziegler's dance instructor Abby Lee Miller recently admitted that the dancer's performance on an episode of the show was "sabotaged" by producers.
Apparently, Miller says that Ziegler was purposely shown to have forgotten her dance moves when in actuality it was the producers behind the scenes who wanted to allegedly sabotage her performance. Miller makes the revelation in her new book, Everything I Learned In Life, I Learned In Dance Class.
"In one episode, Maddie supposedly forgot her dance, but in reality, it was all set up by production," she explained in her book. "They set the ball in motion at the beginning of the week so that Maddie didn't have enough studio time to finish learning her solo."
Miller goes on to explain that Ziegler was asked to leave the studio after just 64 counts and was forced to learn almost all of her routine the morning of her performance.
"The other thing you don't see in the episode is that the jib camera operator didn't know what he was doing, and two kids before Maddie and two kids after Maddie ran off the stage because they forgot their dances... that never happens," she said.
"I think that was absolutely criminal on their part of the job operator, the director, the producer, and all involved," she added.