Years later, Chloé Lukasiak can still remember the moment she decided to stop living on the dance floor.
It wasn't when her four tumultuous seasons as one of Abby Lee Miller's oft-chastised pupils came to a sudden end with an ugly argument that saw the studio owner bellow that the then-13-year-old was "finished." Nor was it when she exited Dance Moms for a second time in 2017.
Instead, in the fall of 2019, just months before she was set to begin her freshman year at Pepperdine University in Malibu, Calif., "I took my last class and I was like, 'I'm done, I'm walking away,'" Chloé recalled in an exclusive interview with E! News. "I needed that space and that independence from something that had consumed my whole life."
Just 2 years old when she signed on as one of Abby's skilled competition dancers tasked with nabbing the top prize (because second place is the first loser), "It was a sport I really loved," she said, "but it was often infected by toxicity."
And as much as Abby wasn't winning any congeniality prizes thanks to her "everyone's replaceable" reminders and penchant for pitting her elementary-aged students against one another, she was hardly an anomaly in the industry. "I know a lot of dancers have that experience," said Chloé. "They were kind of let down by how negative the dance world can be."
Which is why a little more than a year ago, it dawned on the 22-year-old soon-to-be college grad exactly what she wanted to do with her life.
"I was chatting with some friends and I was really wondering the point of my experience on Dance Moms," she recalled. "And I don't mean just in life, because obviously, it gave me the life I have now and I'm very grateful for it. But I meant in terms of dance. I was like, 'What's my full circle moment with dance? What does that mean for me now as an adult?'"
The answer was both obvious and fairly ingenious. "I realized, oh, maybe I experienced everything I did on the show and everything I did growing up dancing because I was meant to lead this new generation of dance into a more positive environment," she said of the basis for Elevé, the national dance competition she's launching with mom Christi Lukasiak and fellow mother-daughter duo Diane and Brittany Pent.
With a focus on "uplifting each other," she continued, her hope is that each dancer "walks away feeling like, I had a great time and I feel so inspired."
So basically a complete 180 from her save-the-tears-for-your-pillow days.
Asked if her experience under Abby's tutelage was worse than it appeared on screen, Chloé responded, "Absolutely. It was a very difficult situation. But I always say this—and I really mean this from the bottom of my heart—I wouldn't change a thing about it."
While she certainly would have appreciated the tough love to be a little, well, loving, "I feel like everything we go through shapes who we are as people," she noted. "Even though it was difficult, at the end of the day anyone who's in a really difficult sport like that goes through some degree of what we went through as well."
Not that she's condoning the time Abby called her "a little sneak" or spent an entire episode pretending not to remember her name.
"I've just heard lots of stories from other people who are in sports like that and they say it's similar," she stressed. "But that's why I started this competition to change the atmosphere. We can improve and grow, but we don't have to do it in a way where we feel awful about ourselves."
Kicking off in Indianapolis this January, every aspect of Elevé is designed with their overarching goal in mind. "Just reminding ourselves constantly of why we created this is the most important," she explained, "and making sure we hire people who align with that vision. We're taking our goal and implementing it into every single decision we make from the awards to the merchandise to the whole experience of the weekend."
As for whether Dance Moms fans could see the series OG take the stage, she might dip a perfectly pointed foot back into that world.
"I'm interested to see how I feel as the weekends go by," admitted the creative writing student, who slipped back into her leotard for an intro to ballet class last semester.
The session fulfilling her need for an art class credit, "It was the first time I danced in four years," she said. "And I was like, okay, I'm not quite ready to jump back into it fully, but I think being surrounded by dancers and seeing them cheer each other on will probably foster that passion in me again. But I'm not pushing it. I'm just going to wait and see what happens."
Should she decide to reclaim her centerstage spot, she'll have quite the cheering section.
Set to mark their third anniversary this November, she and skateboarder Brooklinn Khoury, "really balance each other out in a great way," noted Chloé. "She brings out my spontaneous extroverted side and I bring out her introverted side."
Along with just "enjoying each other's presence," she and the YouTube content creator, 24, are "really supportive of one another," said Chloé, who is also at work on her first fiction book. "She is really starting to take off with her career and I'm starting to focus on Elevé and life after school. It was just a natural fit right when we met."
As for their future together, "We're figuring it out," she said. "We'll just see where the wind takes us."
It's already amazing for Chloé to look back on how far a bit of determination has carried her. And not just in the literal sense, with the Pennsylvania native moving 3,000 miles away to Los Angeles "as soon as I turned 18."
When she was in the middle of the Dance Moms chaos tornado, "I didn't even think about getting through it, I just pushed through," she reflected. "Only now, looking back, do I realize, wow, that was really crazy. In the moment, though, you kind of just put your head down and tried to get through each day for four years."
There was a little bit of leaning onto her castmates ("We're always cheering each other on from the sidelines") and, of course, her mom. But mostly, she said, "I just kind of blocked it out for a while. And it wasn't until the last couple of years that I really was like, 'Oh, that had an impact on me.' It took me a while to face it and be like, 'That was difficult. But that doesn't have to define who I am anymore.'"
And she's not the only Dance Moms alum to jeté her way into something bigger. Here's how each of the standouts from Abby's Junior Elite competition team are handling their lives as soloists.
Maddie Ziegler
In the decade-plus since the Pennsylvania native pirouetted her way into our hearts as the unquestionable star of the Abby Lee Dance Company, she's jeted her way from electropop star Sia's music video darling to film actress with appearances in Sia's directorial debut Music and the 2021 West Side Story remake.
She also released a New York Times best-selling memoir, 2017's The Maddie Diaries, judged a new crop of talent on So You Think You Can Dance: The Next Generation and teamed with younger sister Kenzie Ziegler for their Take 20 With Maddie and Kenzie podcast. "I think we wanted to let our guards down and show something that wasn't so heavily produced," Maddie explained to E! News, "and, rather, just us having a pretty casual conversation."
For her next act, she's eyeing her own beauty empire. "I would love to do my own line one day," she said. "I think that would be so amazing and something that I've dreamt of doing forever."
Kenzie Ziegler
Fully graduated from her acro days, one of the singer's latest releases was 2023's "Anatomy," a very personal battle detailing her relationship with her estranged father. "I definitely am stepping out of my comfort zone," she told People of the single, "and being authentic in a different way that’s not just on social media—I’m telling my story.”
And with all due respect to the nearly 15 million Dance Moms fans who follow her on Instagram, she's looking to dig a little deeper for her forthcoming third album. "I feel like this is just the first time where I can talk about things that have happened with my life and share some important things to me," she told E! News. "I just want people to take away something from it—whether that be happy, whether that be sad or that they can relate to it."
Chloe Lukasiak
Nearly a decade after she took her final Dance Moms bow, the trophy-collecting soloist is ready to start living on the dance floor again.
“I missed dance, and I wanted to find a way to get back to something I had loved so much,” the Girl on Pointe: Chloe's Guide to Taking on the World author explained of launching Elevé National Dance Competition with mom Christi Lukasiak and fellow mother-daughter duo Diane and Brittany Pent. “But I wanted to help create something that was the exact opposite of what I had experienced. Something positive. I challenged myself to develop something to reignite my love of dance.”
Among the other loves of the actress’ life: The Lifetime series’ OG squad. Sharing a May 2023 get-together with Nia Sioux on Instagram, the Pepperdine University grad wrote, "One of my sisters from another mama."
Nia Sioux
The OG company member (and death drop enthusiast) continues to slay in music (she dropped her single "Low Key Love" in 2020) and acting, fronting the web series Sunnyside Up and appearing in 59 episodes of The Bold and the Beautiful.
And while her day job is senior at UCLA, she moonlights in Hollywood, recently dropping her single "IMMA CATCH" and landing on Variety's 2023 Young Hollywood Impact Report. "I’m so honored to share that list with so many amazing individuals," she wrote on Instagram, "and it’s such a privilege to be recognized."
Brooke Hyland
Trading in group numbers for group trips, the eldest of the show's OGs recently led an excursion to Costa Rica, sharing on Instagram in July that "7 days took us from strangers to friends crying in the airport having to say goodbye to each other."
Next up, she'll oversee a six-day jaunt through Croatia inspired by the European backpacking trip she enjoyed after graduating from Ohio University. "I explored beautiful places and cultures, while making lifelong friends in the process," she shared. "It was the trip of a lifetime."
When stateside, the Pittsburgh resident makes the most of her marketing degree, both with her Bite-Sized Foodie Instagram account and the Hyland Sisters brand she shares with little sib Paige.
Paige Hyland
The four-season vet has few tears to save for her pillow as of late. Since earning her degree from West Virginia University in May 2023 ("IM SO PROUD OF YOU!!!! Congratulations," Christi Lukasiak commented on her graduation 'gram), the model and influencer has criss-crossed the country with stops in the Hamptons, Colorado and Wyoming.
Her No. 1 travel buddy (other than older sis Brooke): Her longtime boyfriend, former college football player Jayvon Thrift. "Adore you in every kind of way," she wrote of the fitness model in a 2022 post.
Kendall Vertes
These days, the James Madison University junior is still collecting trophies as part of the Virginia college's championship-winning dance team. "Younger me would be so proud," the political science major wrote in a September Instagram. (Naturally, her dance mom Jill Vertes chimed in, "I know I’m so proud of my little kendall.")
In addition to trying her hand at acting (including the 2019 movie Rapunzel: A Princess Frozen in Time and a live-action version of Anastasia) and singing (as Kendall K, she released several albums), the season two arrival has nabbed more than a few sponsorships, thanks to her 11 million Instagram followers.
JoJo Siwa
Despite appearing in just two seasons of the OG series (after a stint on Abby's Ultimate Dance Competition) JoJo with a Bow Bow arguably stole the spotlight, going on to nab a massive YouTube following, an exclusive licensing deal with Nickelodeon, endless branded merchandise and a spot on Time's 100 most influential people of 2020.
"One of the biggest things that I ever learned from Dance Moms was either to sink or swim," she once explained to Kelly Ripa. "Not, like, physically, actually in a swimming pool. But to really just be able to survive and to want it."
These days, as she pals around with the likes of Miley Cyrus and Kim Kardashian, she's doing more than treading water. In 2021, the LGBTQ+ icon partnered with Jenna Johnson to compete as the first same-sex couple on the U.S. version of Dancing With the Stars.
Now she's eyeing an even bigger stage, telling Raven-Symoné and wife Miranda Pearman-Maday, "My dream, dream, dream, dream is the Super Bowl, to do the halftime performance." And once she's scored that gig, she told the duo on an August episode of The Best Podcast Ever, "Then I'll retire and have babies."
Kalani Hilliker
Back home in Arizona, the dancer, actress and entrepreneur is fully embracing what she calls "my health and wellness era" with the 2023 launch of her beauty line Kare.
"I struggle with anxiety," she explained to E! News of her inspiration. "And I really wanted to create a brand that was inclusive to everyone to be able to just relax and take time for yourself and have a solid self-care routine to help you get through your day."
And, yes, the season 4 arrival, who also got her start on Abby's Ultimate Dance Competition, is still nailing every last arabesque, having dipped her perfectly arched foot back into dancing and teaching. "I obviously have a very different teaching way than Abby does towards me. Or, honestly, most of my dance teachers," she shared. "I like to be very kind, but also you've got to push them to be the best they can be."
Asia Monet Ray
Consider Asia officially raised. Though the California native stepped away from TV cameras just before her 10th birthday—following one season each on Abby's Ultimate Dance Competition, Dance Moms and her own standalone series Raising Asia—"I genuinely had a great experience on it," Asia insisted to E! News in 2021, acknowledging that wasn't necessarily the case for many of her costars. "There was nothing that I would change on my experience whatsoever."
Wrapping up her high school career last June as a valedictorian, "I’m extremely proud of myself for achieving a personal goal," the model and artist wrote on Instagram, "and I can’t wait to see what’s next."
Thanks to a plethora of brand deals and invites to every it event, her future seems bright. As for her reality star past, "I really did enjoy the time I had out there and growing up on television," she told E!. "Even though it seems like a lot, it was something that really set me up for life that I would never take for granted."
Camryn Bridges
Since joining the team in season 7, the St. Louis native has been living on some much larger dance floors.
Between touring with Kendrick Lamar and performing in Usher’s Las Vegas residency, she took to the Grammys stage with Missy Elliott. "Beyond blessed!!!" she wrote of the February 2023 experience.
And she plans to keep climbing her own personal pyramid. As she put it in a December 2022 Instagram marking the end of her 76-show stint with Lamar, "I know this is only the beginning."
Brynn Rumfallo
When she exited stage left after a three-season stint that saw her trying to fill Maddie's ballet shoes, the Phoenix native "wanted to go back to high school and I wanted to just be normal and have my friends," she explained in a 2023 YouTube video with best friend Kelsey Millar. "High school sucked, but I’m glad that I did it. And now that I’ve experienced both lives, I know what I want. Which, there is a way to balance both of them in the middle."
For the 2021 grad, that's meant launching her and Millar's Out of Line podcast and documenting her trips to Coachella and Stagecoach for her three million Instagram followers. Plus, experiencing more than a few encounters with fans when she takes her dance students to competitions.
"It's really cute," Brynn, who remains close to Kenzie, said of one recent encounter. "They're like, 'Miss Brynn, you're famous?'"