Los Angeles - UPI
Abby Lee Miller of Dance Moms says obstacles may keep the show from beginning a new season.
The demanding instructor told Entertainment Tonight that "altercations" caused "a lot of missing Abby" in the second half of season five, which has yet to air. Miller was apparently thrown out by producers at a competition, and decided to stay away for some time. She told ET, "So I left and I didn't come back...There's about one week that I just wasn't there. And I thought, 'You know what? If they can do it without me, do it without me.'"
A sixth season of the show is hitting road blocks, according to Miller, who says that Lifetime is "in the rears" when it comes to paying her for the current season. She says that before there's any talk of another season, her payment plan would have to be attended to.
When it comes to her Pittsburg-based dance company, Miller says the show doesn't draw in a lot of new blood, as would be expected from its apparent fame. "It's the opposite," she said.
"Kids left because of the crew, and stepping on their bags and pushing them out of the way and all those things."
But when it comes to Dance Moms, Miller doesn't want all the attention on the strife between her and students' parents. Instead, she says that because of all the children that watch the Lifetime series, she'd to focus on the art and "back off the moms and the swearing and the fighting and all that."
"I post an Instagram, I could probably have, no lie, 500 kids here within 5 hours, on one Instagram. It's the kids that watch our show," she said. "So I wish that the network would realize that...."
Recently, Miller opened up to People about her recent weight loss, which was prompted by a hectic schedule and a lap-band procedure. Between visiting her late mother in the hospital, getting sick and being put in situations where food was less than appetizing, Miller simply dropped pounds. She has shrunk from a size 24 to a size 16 but says she has "a long, long way to go."
The second half of Season 5 of Dance Moms airs June 9 on Lifetime.