According to former cast members, other incidents weren’t as straightforward as they seemed in the show. Dancers sometimes forgot their solos, which would often lead to explosive dressing room fights and a spot at the bottom of Abby’s pyramid. But Fallon Chapman, who appeared on the show in 2014 as a guest dancer, explained in a January TikTok that in an incident where she had “forgotten” her solo, she had actually injured her knee during her dance, so she began improvising the rest. She also said that she ran off the stage so that the camera operators wouldn’t “see her crying and try to make some story out of it.”
Chapman stated that prior to her appearance on the show, she had only done a couple of solos and that she had only done musical theater and lyrical numbers. “This was already a red flag at this point when they told me I was going to be doing, like, a dark and creepy contemporary number, because I never even done that before,” Chapman explained.
While the dancers experienced a whirlwind of emotions and experiences, many seem to be thriving. TikToker Caroline Tsambalieros posts updates on the show’s dancers and explained to me in a Zoom interview that the show was such an important part of so many people’s lives growing up that there was bound to be an audience hungry for life after Dance Moms.
“They were role models for so many other girls that were the same age,” she said. “It’s exciting that it has this longevity even though the show has been over for so long and that original cast has been gone even longer. There was just something about them. They connected with people.”
Lukasiak agrees: “Lots of people grow up and have big careers, but it’s odd that like a group that literally has known each other since they were two, three, four, they all have successful careers. And no one’s a serial killer, which is amazing. They easily could have been, given everything they’ve been through.”●
