On Dance Moms

Abby is a formidable, extremely strict teacher with high expectations for her students, and her harsh words have been known to bring many of her students to tears on an occasional basis. Abby has stated before that she "would rather be the one to make her students cry in her studio than have them break down and cry in an open-casting call in front of hundreds of other talented performers." Despite the severe pressure she often applies to the girls, Abby still seeks to instill in her students a close sense of camaraderie between one another, and has noted "there has not been a single fight between the dancers on the show", to the amazement of the show's crew. Abby often gets emotional if she is very proud of a student, as when she watched Mackenzie grow as a dancer while rehearsing in the episode Brooke's Back; and elsewhere stating "what she most loves about teaching is seeing the joy on a student's face when they first achieve a goal or learn a new dance skill."

Abby commonly fights with the mothers of her students, especially Christi Lukasiak, the mother of Chloe Lukasiak; both have stated openly that they cannot stand each other, their fighting extending even beyond the show's filming. Abby also often gets into passionate fights with Kelly Hyland,a mother who was once a member of Abby's original batch of students when Abby was fourteen, but eventually quit in favor of cheerleading. Abby is frequently criticized by most of the moms for favoritism towards Maddie Ziegler, whose mother Melissa tends to ally herself with Abby, unlike the other dance moms. Abby additionally has a rivalry with Cathy Stein, formerly a dance mom at ALDC, who now runs the rival studio, Candy Apple's Dance Center. Abby and Cathy regularly taunt and mock each other on the show, although they have admitted to still being friends away from the cameras.

Abby is known for producing employable dancers and attempts to school the girls in behavior as well. She cares for the girls, defending herself from critics by saying she has served as part time guardian in raising thousands of her students, doing everything from driving them alone to competitions to nursing them when sick and tending their broken bones.She also points out that "with ninety hours of footage filmed per week, edited down to forty minutes often of the most dramatic", many are left with a distorted view on the frequency and severity of the conflicts. Abby maintains close connections to many of her former students[7], including her co-choreographer on the show, Gianna Martello.

Nevertheless, Abby's critics have charged her from "crossing a line from disciplinarian into the clearly abusive with her verbal assaults on students".[19]

It's also been said that students must first sell their souls before

Trivia

According to Abby, there is actually something in contracts, specifically for title holders, that leads to fines if they leave Abby as their teacher-of-record ($100,000 according to Christi); but this does not apply to leaving the studio in general. When an ALDC student was asked if the $100,000 penalty was really true for the Dance Moms girls, the student laughed, and indicated it applied to more than just the girls on the show.

Abby's membership in Dance Masters of America was reportedly terminated in early 2012 by her own chapter. Abby had been a member since 1986. Her mother, Maryen Lorrain Miller, continues to be listed as a lifetime member (since 1946), and in association with Reign Dance Productions.

According to Abby after Season 1, the girls were not being paid, because then they would be considered professionals. However, at the time of filming the early third season episode Out With the Old, In With the New, Abby claimed on Twitter that the moms were on strike to seek better pay and perks; Kelly later echoed this claim regarding the actual nature of the parking lot sit-in dispute. Kelly's 2014 lawsuit against Collins Avenue (link to pdf) includes a copy of changes in her Collins Avenue contract, including various forms of compensation to be paid to the Hylands as a group; a small fraction of which was allotted directly to Paige and Brooke, at $1050 to each star per regular episode in the season.

Abby liked her racy paparazzi photo with executive producer John Corella so much that she used it for her desktop picture.

According to Christi, Abby loves controversy, and her "signature piece" choreography in 2010 "was about a heroin addict who killed herself and kept her baby in a box."

Abby jokes that the guy she 'dated' on Dance Moms has a wife who is still upset about it.

In 2012, Abby appeared in the music video for Werqin' Girl, a song by drag queen Shangela Laquifa Wadley. The song was also used for one of Nia's solos.

Abby claims that Christi is under contract from Lifetime and Collins Avenue, and she can't get rid of Christi and Chloe; but that they also can't quit.

Abby's favorite genre to choreograph is "probably" musical theater.

Abby claims that getting hit with Cathy's purse was the most surprising thing that happened on the show.

Abby will sit for hours on end in her office, looking for the perfect music for her dancers.

Abby has a celebrity crush on Tom Cruise.

Abby's favorite channel is HGTV, where she enjoys watching Carter Oosterhouse.

According to fellow high school classmates at Penn Hills High School, Abby's nickname was Abby-whale.

Abby was guest judge on Dancing With the Stars Season 18, Episode 8.

Abby, along with several other members of the Dance Moms cast, appeared and starred in Todrick Hall's video "Freaks Like Me" as the Fairy Godmother. It was released on July 3rd, 2014. The music video can be seen in full here. 

Abby gets the girls to tag her in social media posts, in order to gain Abby more followers.

being worthy of dancing at her school, Christi claiming that Abby would blackball her daughter in the world of dance, should they break their contract and move to another studio.

Abby credits her friend  and Dance Moms executive producer John Corella as being instrumental with her in developing the show. Abby believes Dance Moms is successful largely because the character relationships were real long before the show's creation, including conflicts with moms over attention given to Maddie. More recently in 2013, Abby has said that Dance Moms: Miami did not work because they auditioned girls to be on the show.