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The Girls From DANCE MOMS All Grown Up

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The original ALDC kids from Dance Moms are barely recognizable now, and the receipts are all over YouTube and Billboard.

Six seasons of pyramid rankings, group numbers rehearsed until 2 a.m., and Abby Lee Miller barking orders from a folding chair turned a handful of pre-teens into some of the most recognizable young performers in the country. By the summer of 2017, the original Abby Lee Dance Company crew that anchored Lifetime’s Dance Moms had scattered into music, film, and social media in ways nobody watching those early competition seasons could have predicted.

• Maddie Ziegler left the show during Season 6 in 2016 and became Sia’s go-to video star, appearing in “Chandelier,” “Elastic Heart,” and “Big Girls Cry,” videos that combined for billions of YouTube views.
• By 2017, Maddie had published her memoir The Maddie Diaries, joined the judging panel of So You Think You Can Dance: The Next Generation, and made her feature film debut in Colin Trevorrow’s The Book of Henry.
• Chloé Lukasiak, whose rivalry with Maddie fueled the show’s early drama, exited in Season 4, built a major YouTube following, and made a surprise return to the series in Season 7.

Maddie Ziegler’s Leap From Competition Floor to Sia’s Videos

No dancer from the ALDC bench made the jump to mainstream fame faster than Maddie Ziegler. Her partnership with Sia started with “Chandelier” and continued through “Elastic Heart” and “Big Girls Cry,” a run of videos that turned Ziegler into a recognizable face far outside the competitive dance circuit. That exposure translated directly into other opportunities: a judging seat on So You Think You Can Dance: The Next Generation, a bestselling memoir, and a starring role in The Book of Henry alongside Naomi Watts.

Ziegler’s departure from Dance Moms in Season 6 marked the end of her run as the team’s most decorated competitor and the start of a career that no longer needed Abby Lee Miller’s pyramid to validate it. Her sister, Mackenzie Ziegler, followed a parallel but distinct path, launching a pop music career as Mack Z before shifting toward teen pop and modeling work.

Maddie Ziegler’s music-video run with Sia racked up billions of combined YouTube views — numbers no competition trophy from the ALDC studio ever came close to.

Chloé Lukasiak’s Exit, Rebuild, and Return

Chloé Lukasiak’s storyline with the show was never just about choreography. Her rivalry with Maddie Ziegler for top billing on the pyramid was the emotional engine of early seasons, and her Season 4 departure from the studio was one of the show’s most talked-about breaks. Away from Abby Lee Miller’s studio, Lukasiak built an expansive YouTube channel and pursued acting work, carving out an audience that had nothing to do with the competition floor.

Her Season 7 return to Dance Moms caught fans off guard, arriving years after she had seemingly moved on for good. It’s the kind of full-circle moment that made her arc, alongside Maddie’s, the one most viewers still bring up when the show comes up in conversation — a theme covered in depth in pieces like Celebs Who Started Out Friends And Ended Up Enemies.

The Rest of the ALDC Roster Finds Its Footing

Nia Sioux, the longest-tenured of the original students, pushed toward a singing career and picked up off-Broadway theatrical roles, staying closer to the performing-arts track than some of her castmates. Brooke and Paige Hyland stepped back from the competition spotlight but kept building their own public profiles, while Kendall Vertes transitioned from ALDC competitor into a teen influencer with her own following.

Taken together, the group’s post-Dance Moms paths look less like a single trajectory and more like six separate bets on where child stardom can lead — music, modeling, theater, YouTube, film. For a closer look at how reality-TV casts fare once the cameras move on, see What The Most Memorable Wife Swap Families Are Doing Now.

What’s notable heading into the back half of 2017 is that none of these dancers needed Abby Lee Miller’s studio to stay relevant. Maddie’s got a movie credit and a judging chair, Chloé’s back on the show that once let her go, and the rest of the original crew are still finding new rooms to walk into — just not the one with the pyramid on the wall.