When Dance Moms premiered on Lifetime in 2011, it was abundantly clear the show's producers expected viewers to mainly care about Abby Lee Miller. Of course, the show's producers were on to something since there is no doubt that Miller became very famous and people want to know what she is up to now.
In some ways, the story about what has happened to Miller is sad since her love life has been complicated and her health has suffered. Fortunately for anyone who is rooting for Miller, however, the passion she has always exuded hasn't gone missing despite everything she has gone through.
On top of being interested in Miller's life, longtime Dance Mom fans also came to care about some of the show's other stars including one person who's had a fascinating life. After all, another one of Dance Mom's stars, Maddie Ziegler, rose to international fame over time.
A truly talented performer who has accomplished amazing things, Maddie Ziegler's success story has left some fans wondering about how financially rewarding her career has been. More specifically, many of Maddie's fans are curious about how much money she has now and how rewarding starring in Dance Moms was.
On July 13th, 2011, the first episode of Dance Mom aired on Lifetime for the first time. When that episode aired, viewers got their first chance to see the way Abby Lee Miller acted while teaching young performers how to dance.
On top of giving viewers the opportunity to have a first impression of Miller, the debut episode of Dance Moms also gave several young performers a chance to appear on TV. Of course, devoted Dance Moms fans will already know that Maddie Ziegler was one of the young dancers who appeared in that premiere episode.
After appearing in the first episode of Dance Moms, Maddie spent years starring in the show which was a huge hit at the time. Then, Maddie decided to leave Dance Moms behind following the sixth season of the reality show.
When Maddie departed from Dance Moms, many fans were left asking why. To get to the bottom of that, one of the things fans have to consider is how Maddie felt about starring in Dance Moms.
According to a piece that the Ziegler family matriarch wrote for Cosmopolitan at the time, Maddie and her sister Kenzie weren't enjoying starring in Dance Moms anymore.
"Dance Moms was really a great platform for my kids, but they were pretty much done with it. It's the same thing over and over, week after week. My kids told me they didn't want to do it anymore. When my kids aren't happy anymore, I don't care about anything else. It was also holding the kids back. Maddie couldn't do jobs because of her contract with Dance Moms. It was time to move on."
Also in the same piece, it was revealed that Maddie thought it was "cool" to be followed around by cameras. However, Maddie was struggling with the nasty sides of fame. During a separate interview with Seventeen, Maddie spoke about what it was like to be judged by strangers on social media.
"I would be like, 'Why are they mad at me? I've come to realize now that people just do it because they want attention. One person would be hating on me, and then another girl would get into a fight with her on my page! I'm just like, What the heck? Why do people do this?"
Maddie also said that starring in Dancing Moms was "too stressful" during her Seventeen interview.
While it is easy to understand all of Maddie's motivations for leaving Dance Moms, there is another factor that may have played a role in her decision that Ziegler didn't mention.
Over the years, lots of stars have been willing to put up with the kind of things that Maddie described if their jobs paid them well enough. With that in mind, it is interesting to learn that according to reports, Maddie and her sister were relatively underpaid to star in Dance Moms.
In 2015, Abby Lee Miller reportedly revealed that Dance Moms' young dancers were paid $2,000 per episode of the show they star in. Even if Maddie got a raise since her profile was on the rise by the time she left Dance Moms behind, she still almost certainly would have been underpaid.
According to IMDb, Maddie appeared in 161 episodes of Dance Moms. As a result, that means that if Maddie received $2,000 for each of those episodes, she would have been paid $322,000. While that is a lot of money, you have to keep in mind that figure would be taxed and if Maddie had agents, they would wet their beaks too.
In the years since Maddie Ziegler's final episode of Dance Moms aired, the talented young woman has remained quite busy. In fact, it has been pretty fascinating to see all the ways that Maddie has branched out in her career so far.
One of the most notable things that Maddie has done with her career in recent years is that she has become an actor. Most notably, Maddie appeared in two much-talked-about movies, To All the Boys: P.S. I Still Love You and West Side Story. It also was cool to see that Maddie starred in Music, a movie that Sia directed and co-wrote the script for.
Unsurprisingly, Maddie has also continued to show off her dancing skills since leaving Abby Lee Miller behind. On top of Maddie's performances of late, she also joined the cast of So You Think You Can Dance: The Next Generation as a judge.
When she hasn't been busy acting, dancing, or judging, Maddie has also been making money as a model. A perfect example of that is that in 2020 she modeled for Kate Spade's signature fragrance advertisements.
Thanks to all the ways that Maddie has made money in recent years, she has been able to amass an impressive fortune. According to celebritynetworth.com, Maddie has a $5 million fortune as of this writing.
Keeping in mind how much money Maddie reportedly was paid to star in Dance Moms, it seems very clear that she has made most of her money since leaving the show.
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