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.
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, 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, 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, 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 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 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. 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 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, 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. 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 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 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, 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 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 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. 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 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, 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 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 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 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 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. 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. 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 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 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 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, 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 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, 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? 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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, 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. 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 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, 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 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 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. 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 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, 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, 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 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. 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 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 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. 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 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, 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 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. 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 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.