JoJo Siwa gets emotional as she has surprise reunion with controversial former dance instructor
She's largely downplayed her early fame as a dancer in recent years to reinvent herself as a pop star.
But JoJo Siwa got in touch with her roots on Wednesday when she reunited with her former Dance Moms costar Abby Lee Miller.
Miller, 59, served as the infamously tough dance instructor to JoJo, 22, and numerous other young dancers on the TLC series, which ran from 2011 to 2019.
JoJo — who has lately been hinting at a possible relationship with her Celebrity Big Brother costar Chris Hughes — appeared to surprise Abby while she was being interviewed by Mario Lopez and Kit Hoover for Access Daily With Mario & Kit, which was recording from Universal's new Epic Universe theme park in Orlando, Florida.
The dancer-turned-singer initially had her hands covering her white graphic T-shirt when she ran on stage, before saying she had a 'surprise' for Mario and revealing that it was a publicity still of a young version of him and his Saved by The Bell castmates.
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JoJo appeared to surprise Abby while she was being interviewed from Universal's new Epic Universe theme park in Orlando, Florida
Then JoJo ran around behind the desk to give Abby a warm hug before greeting the hosts.
'I got this shirt about nine months ago, being like, "I interview with Mario at least twice a year. I'll eventually have a time to wear it,"' she joked when she made her way around to him.
Ahead of her interview, the show played a popular Dance Moms clip in which Abby talked up JoJo's abilities while publicly denigrating her team mates.
'What you have Jojo is wonderful, and they don't have any of it, even her,' she says, referring to Maddie Ziegler as the clip cut to shots of the other girls' mothers looking uncomfortable or upset.
Afterward, Mario asked if she remembered that interaction from her time shooting Dance Moms, but JoJo wasn't sure if she could trust any of her memories from the period in which she shot the show.
'I actually am questioning this in my life right now. Do I have memories?' she wondered aloud. 'Or do I have memories because I've seen them so often?'
However, she was able to recall the first thing she thought when she met Abby on the Dance Mom's spinoff, Abby's Ultimate Dance Competition
She recalled Abby making an entrance on the show, but because the camera crew hadn't finished setting up, she had to repeat her entrance for them.
That repetition stood out to JoJo, and Abby suggested that it signaled her future ability to command a camera crew's attention.
'She's smart. She found the camera. She found me, she's paying attention,' Miller said, declaring that JoJo already had the capacity to be 'a star.'
JoJo also bragged that she could still do many of her Dance Moms routines.
She grinned as she playfully accused Abby of giving her the least desired parts of the dancing routines, but her former teacher protested that it was the show's producers that wanted her to be singled out.
'I wanted everybody to win!' Abby said.
In another hilariously over-the-top clip from the archive, Abby screamed at JoJo for interrupting her conversation without saying, 'Excuse me.'
Abby admitted she had 'had it' at that point and was stressed out, and JoJo concurred that she didn't have a 'valid' reason to be shouting.
But she also made it clear that she still held her former instructor in great regard.
'I think the one thing that I would never ever lose for Abby, no matter what, is respect,' JoJo said. 'And I think we could go years from now, you could do anything, but the respect that I have for you will be the same as when I was nine.'
The 22-year-old performer had a humorous mixup, as she thought they were meeting '11 years' later, only to correct herself with '12 years,' before realizing that it was actually '13 years' later.
Abby added that she was 'so proud' of her former student after seeing a clip of her new tour.
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