“The numbers I feel are Maddie’s strength are the dark instrumental pieces, like ‘Lizzie Borden’ or ‘Hostage.’ She makes those pieces more than just dance steps: She pulls you into her world. Most of the themes and songs are chosen by the producers. However, I have access to the music databases that we use so I can go in and choose some myself. If I find something that really jumps out to me for a certain girl on the team, I will pitch it to the producers and then they will create a story or theme around that piece of music. I usually steer toward lyrical or contemporary because that is what I feel I am best at, but an audience that isn’t as familiar with dance would think that was boring, which is why we cover all styles on the show. ALDC is known for their dark, contemporary pieces that really tell a story and leave you wanting more.
“The kids were so young in the beginning of Dance Moms, I don’t really think they saw what was happening. As they grew up, the followers grew and now they—and the show—are HUGE. I think Maddie’s social media following goes up every time I look at her pages. She‘s the best role model a teen can ask for—she’s such a hard worker, gives 150 percent to everything she does, and always keeps a smile on her face. We are still very close! We went to lunch about a month ago, and it’s always just like old times. We show each other different routines/combos and stuff we see online, gossip about anything, and of course, shop! She snuck me around backstage at the Sia tour and I got to give her a big squeeze and say, ‘Be good!’ as I normally would before she would go out to perform in competition.
“I think the sky is the limit for Maddie. I always knew she’d be successful, I just didn’t realize it would all happen so quickly. I think she’s absolutely on the right path, and if she keeps it up, she’s going to be unstoppable. What am I talking about? She already is!”—Gianna Martello
Dear Maddie
I just found out my friend is talking about me behind my back, making fun of me to other kids in my school. I thought we were close, but I guess not! I feel totally stabbed in the back.
I don’t blame you! I’ve been the victim of a “frenemy” several times. I’ve made the mistake of thinking some girls were nice, only to find out they were dissing me to other people. Before you let people into your circle, be sure that you can trust them. Friendships—at least really good ones—take time, and you should get to know someone well before you open up to him or her. I’ve had to weed out a bunch of fake friends, and it’s not fun. The best advice I can give you is to notice how people are around you: Do they confide in you? Offer to lend a hand when you need help or an ear when you’re stressed or upset? Or do they exclude you and say insulting things, then laugh, “Just kidding?” In my book, that’s a sure sign of a phony who’s not worthy of your time.
I think my friend has an eating disorder. She never eats lunch in the school cafeteria and she’s lost a lot of weight. What should I do? I don’t want to get her in trouble!
You don’t want her to suffer either—or worse, wind up in the hospital or dead. I’m sorry if that sounds harsh, but eating disorders are serious health issues and should never be ignored. Have you asked her what’s going on? Told her you’re worried about her? If she denies there’s a problem but you still see one, as much as it might make her mad or upset with you, you have to tell her parents or an adult at school about your concerns. If my friend was in danger, I’d let someone know fast before the situation got any worse. I’d say, “Listen, I love you and this is why I want you to get help.” Eventually, she’ll understand why you did what you did and she’ll realize what a good friend you are.
I am so stressed out! I have homework, tests, and Sunday school, on top of my dance classes five times a week. No one understands how I feel!
I do—this sounds a lot like my life. My schedule has always been crazy, but I’ve learned how to manage and juggle a lot of balls without feeling too overwhelmed. Honestly, the key is to get super organized. Mark everything down on a calendar or planner; set alarms and reminders on your phone; make sure you know when things are due and what’s coming up. Make to-do lists and check them off. If you still feel like you’re drowning, you can always ask someone for help—your parents, your siblings, your friends, your teachers. You’re not in this alone. That said, you also need to consider whether you’re spreading yourself too thin. Do you love dance, and are you willing to be in a studio that many days and hours? If the answer is yes, then go for it. I’d personally rather be busy than bored at home watching TV. But if it’s not truly your passion (or it was once but isn’t anymore), it’s okay to cut back and give yourself a breather.
Today Is a Beautiful Day to . . .
Mismatch something you’re wearing—your socks, your earrings, your gold and silver jewelry. Just to mix things up a little!
Sneak in some exercise. We live on the third floor of our apartment complex in L.A., and most of the time we’re lazy and take the elevator. But if I climb the stairs, I’m getting in exercise when I didn’t even think I had time to work out. Yay me!
Paint a picture. Remember when you were in kindergarten and the most fun part of every day was getting to finger paint on an easel? Get out a piece of paper and a paint set and just let your brush wander across the page. Paint whatever comes to mind—it doesn’t have to be a masterpiece. For me, it just gets my creativity flowing.
People sometimes come up to me and stare; they forget that I’m a person. When this happens, I don’t really know what to do. I usually smile and say, “Hi, what’s your name?” and hope they snap out of it. Seriously, I have been in airports or restaurants or strolling around L.A., face-to-face with someone who has seen me on TV, and they just stand there, speechless—or worse, they cry. They actually cry! I get what that feels like—if I bumped into Ellen Pompeo or Blake Lively or even a Kardashian/Jenner I might be tongue-tied, too. When I recently met Ashley Tisdale (aka Sharpay) backstage at So You Think You Can Dance, I was so happy.
It’s so sweet when people recognize me, but they don’t realize that I have a life just like them. Take today: I’ve literally been in my sweatpants and T-shirt all day. I think I slept in them, too. My mom had to beg me to change out of them so we could go out to dinner with friends who are visiting us from Pittsburgh. I pulled on a ripped pair of jeans and a plain black slouchy tee and put my hair up in a messy bun. Don’t tell her, but I didn’t even brush it. I’m not wearing any makeup, and although my mom’s nails are long and manicured Barbie pink, mine are short and stubby and unpolished. So glam, right? Unless I am going out to an event where I’m going to be mobbed by cameras on the red carpet, this is me—a pretty normal teenager and kind of low-maintenance.
I work so much that I like my days off to be stress-free: completely chilling out, sleeping late, ordering in, and not getting dressed up or even dressed at all beyond my PJs. I might binge-watch three episodes of Grey’s on Netflix to catch up so JoJo won’t spoil it for me—this is what happens when your friends are a season ahead. We are so addicted. We went online and ordered matching sweatshirts that say all the interns’ names and another one that says IT’S A BEAUTIFUL DAY TO SAVE LIVES. But sometimes JoJo gets a little carried away. The other day she FaceTimed me and showed me her iPad screen.
“Look at what’s happening! I’m so devastated!” She zoomed in on one of the characters getting shot. “I can’t! I just can’t!” she cried.
Click! Just like that, she hung up, leaving me to deal with the horror of that image she’d just shared—of McDreamy, one of my fave doctors on the show, fighting for his life. I had no idea how many seasons it would take me to find out if he survived. Are you kidding me? I was so mad, I made her promise to let me catch up before she blurted anything else out. So I’m still somewhere in the middle of Season 3, dreading the McDreamy shooting coming up in Season 6. Thanks, JoJo. It’s like skipping to the last page of a novel and finding out it’s going to end really, really badly.
No day in L.A. is really “typical” for me, because stuff seems to always come up—the
re might be a meeting or audition that just appears out of thin air. We try to keep to a schedule, but things are always changing. That’s L.A. Traffic is slow, but everything else here moves really fast. When I’m back home in Pittsburgh, it feels much calmer and life is more of a routine. I’ll usually sleep till nine or ten. I am not a morning person, and my friends know not to text me till noon. I’m grumpy if you wake me. I’ll go downstairs and make myself breakfast—usually a smoothie or a bowl of Cap’n Crunch with berries. If I had my way, I’d have ice cream for breakfast, but my mom doesn’t appreciate that. She can’t seem to understand that Ben & Jerry’s is a basic food group.
I usually hang with my neighbors at our pool or on their trampoline, though we might go shopping. My friend Sydney is seventeen and has her license, so she can drive us to the mall or to the Shop ’n Save. The other day, we went shopping for recipe ingredients. We found a Buffalo chicken dip recipe somewhere online and decided to improvise our own version. It was amazing. I ate so many tortilla chips and veggies smothered in our dip (actually, I might have scraped some right out of the bowl with a spoon, too), I felt like I was going to explode. There are always scented candles burning in my home. I always have to feel like my house smells nice, the opposite of the stinky, smelly dance studios. I feel like the odor of sweat, armpits, and dirty feet clings to everything, so candles are the only way to get rid of it.
BEST BUFFALO CHICKEN DIP EVER
A yummy appetizer for a girlfriend get-together—and so easy to make
Ingredients
1 package (8 oz.) cream cheese, softened
1 can (12 oz.) chunk white chicken, drained (you can also use chopped-up leftover roast chicken—about 1–2 cups)
1/2 cup Buffalo wing sauce (my friends prefer it spicy!)
1/2 cup ranch dressing
2 cups shredded cheese (you can go for something like a spicy Havarti, Colby, even cheddar—whatever you like most)
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Spread cream cheese on the bottom of an ungreased baking dish. We used one of my mom’s that’s rectangular and shallow and holds about a quart. On top of the cream cheese, layer your chicken. Then place wing sauce on top, and salad dressing on top of that. Finally, sprinkle cheese on top and bake until you see all the cheese melted and bubbly. It should take about 20 minutes; any longer and it might burn, so keep an eye on it. Go ahead and dip your chips in it; it’s pretty delicious on anything—even bread or a pretzel.
MADDIE’S MORNING SMOOTHIE
So I don’t have an official ingredient list for this. I just throw in whatever fruit we have in our L.A. apartment, whatever my mom might have picked up at the farmers’ market. Usually, it’s strawberries, bananas, blueberries, and raspberries—all kinds of berries in general. You can always do frozen if you don’t have fresh. I’ll toss a handful or two into my Magic Bullet blender along with 1/3 cup cranberry or apple juice. If you like your smoothie thick, you can add 1/4 cup yogurt, but I’m really not a Greek-yogurt girl (although I know it’s good for you). Blend until smooth.
For the record, there are no decent clothing stores in Pittsburgh. Even the mall is underwhelming. L.A. has spoiled me. The Grove is the best thing in the entire world, in case you’re wondering. It has every single store I love, from Brandy Melville, Nordstrom, Topshop and Sephora, to Dylan’s Candy Bar and Sprinkles Cupcakes. Pittsburgh just pales in comparison. It’s not its fault: Hollywood is a hard act to follow.
When we’re back in Pittsburgh, we eat at home a lot, because we’re basically never home—this is our chance. My stepdad Greg will grill up a steak or chicken, or we’ll order in from Azan Wok—the best Chinese food that’s five minutes from our house, so it takes no time at all to deliver. My mom orders from them so much that they recognize her voice on the phone: “You want the usual? Chicken on a stick?” That’s not what it’s even called (it says “chicken skewers” on the menu), but that’s what my mom has named it. We’ll get some edamame on the side; I’ll get white rice and Kenzie will get fried rice, whatever we’re in the mood for. If we’re starved, we’ll eat right out of the cartons and not even bother to get out the dinner plates. Mom might frown at that, but Kenzie and I think it’s fun.
My friends and I have a lot of sleepovers and snuggle together watching scary movies—my neighbors Emma and Sydney have a movie room in her house, so we pop popcorn or bake brownies or chocolate-chip cookies and have our own screening. The last movie we watched was The Conjuring 2. We always wind up terrified, but if we’re together, we’re fine. It’s like, safety in numbers. To my friends, the fact that I’m on TV or videos or the movies is no biggie. They might send me a Snapchat from the airport of my face on a magazine cover—“Oh, look! It’s you lol”—but that’s the most they’ll ever really talk about it. It’s just what I do; it’s not who I am. They’d much rather gossip about clothes or boys or try out new makeup.
I’m homeschooled but I take tests and write papers and usually spend four hours a day during the school year working with my tutor. My favorite subjects are English and math; science not so much. I love a good book, and the last one I read was Me and Earl and the Dying Girl by Jesse Andrews. Sad, sad, sad. My favorite books ever were Freak the Mighty and Wonder—both brought me to tears. I love writing my own stories, and I’ll often draw an illustration to go with them. I have a really vivid imagination, so the stories can be kinda out there sometimes, but I love letting my creativity run wild. I’m also a doodle-holic. There isn’t a piece of paper around the house that doesn’t have one of my scribbles on it. Put a pencil or a pen in my hand and I’ll draw—eyes, hearts, lightning bolts, lips, you name it.
I know I’m lucky; I know that “average” teenage girls don’t get all the opportunities I’ve been given. But I also feel on so many levels that I am just a regular kid. My mom yells at me when I’m texting on my phone (probably because I’m tuning her out), and she lost it when I used up all the data on our family phone plan streaming Netflix (I couldn’t help it! I was on the last season of Gossip Girl!). My little sister hides my things where I can’t find them (like in her closet!). We both always try to get out of doing our homework. There are days I look in the mirror and think to myself, Ugh! My stomach looks bloated, or, My thighs are jiggly, or, My face is broken out, or, My hair looks flat. On a daily basis, I open my closet and can’t find a single thing to wear.
I have the same insecurities that every girl my age has; that doesn’t change because I’m in the public eye. In fact, sometimes it makes me even more insecure. I have to worry about a photo of me looking terrible going viral on the internet. Or I might wind up in a weekly’s “worst-dressed” spread for a choice I made on the red carpet. If these things happened in school, it would be considered bullying. But because I’m an entertainer, it’s part of the job. When you put yourself out there, you make yourself an easy target. People will judge you for whatever reason—they’re jealous, they don’t like themselves, they’re having a bad day. I’ve learned to not take it personally. If I did, I’d be upset all the time, because there is an awful lot of hating that goes on in this world. Social media is a great thing, but it makes hating on others really easy. The best you can do is ignore it; let it bounce off you. Like Sia sings in “Titanium”: “You’re bulletproof; nothing to lose, fire away.” Surround yourself with people who love you and appreciate you for who you truly are.
I like that my mom has always made it her mission to keep my feet firmly planted on the ground—when I’m not dancing, of course. Anytime something threatens to go to my head—say, being photographed recently for Vanity Fair or appearing on the Grammys with Sia—she brings me back down to earth and tells me to go make my bed (just so you know, it was Kenzie’s turn to do it today, but she forgot). I’ve met a few people in Hollywood, and it’s clear that fame has gotten to them—they’re not gracious or polite; they think they’re better than everyone else. In the dance competition world, we learned you’re only as good as your last performance—you’re top of the pyr
amid this week, bottom the next. I think that goes for life in general. You always have to keep working hard and treating others the way you want to be treated. I’ll be totally honest here: Sometimes all the things I do in my career feel a little like an out-of-body experience. I’m always going to be me, and I wouldn’t want it any other way.
Pinch-Me Moments
Over the years, I’ve had some really amazing—and really crazy—experiences, from winning awards, to walking the red carpet, to meeting celebs face-to-face. Like Justin Bieber!
“Chandelier,” 2014. I remember thinking to myself, I wonder if anyone is gonna see this. I had no idea it would literally explode and celebs would be tweeting how much it inspired them. Ellen DeGeneres raved, and Glee star Naya Rivera tweeted, “Ok my jaw is completely dropped at how good this @Sia ‘chandelier’ video is.” I remember I decided to check the number of views on YouTube and it said more than six million people had watched it—this was in the first few days!
Kids’ Choice Awards, 2012. I was about nine at the time, and all the girls from Dance Moms got to go—this was our first awards show. We were all wearing pink, and I remember we matched the pink carpet! I had always had a major fangirl crush on Justin Bieber—when people asked me, “What star would you like to dance with?” I would always say him. And then there he was: in this cool camo T-shirt with that spiky-hair thing going on. If I look at the photos the paparazzi took of all of us with him, my face is utter joy—and maybe shock. He was very gracious and posed with his arm around me.
The Maddie Diaries Page 6