Back to the Barre

They always asked me the most stupid things, Kelly says, about Dance Mom reunion shows, the first of which is the subject of today’s podcast episode. Christi reminds us that the Moms were the real stars of the show and they got up to a lot while their daughters were endlessly rehearsing with Abby. They attempted to work out at the gym but always got sidetracked to the same place. Christi reveals why she would sit outside of the studio at the bus stop and who she spent hours talking to there. Abby spent much of her free time seeing hundreds of Broadway shows, which she always managed to brag about.The Moms have an unbreakable bond that far precedes and has long outlasted the show. Christi recalls what she said to the officer who pulled her over while she was rushing Nia and Chloe to a competition, as well as the incident during Clara’s birth that Paige and Chloe still talk about every time they see her. No one talks to Abby anymore, but they still think of her and the lingering influence she and the show had on the girls’ psyches, and the Moms’ careers and parenting styles. If Abby had had a child, things might have been very different, since she would have understood the extent of the Moms’ responsibilities, and the lengths to which they were willing to go for their children. They give suggestions to improve Jill’s reunion show wardrobe and discuss the hit job Kelly’s stylist did on her hair.Quotes“It's funny because I said nobody understands like us, we all have each other's back and Abby's rolling her eyes. The five of us still talk and nobody talks to her. So roll your eyes all you want Abby.” (41:12-41:24 | Christi) “Abby said, ‘I can always create another family.’...None of those little families worked out as well as us. No, they were all just trying to be us.” (41:42-42:06 | Kelly and Christi)“Abby was trying to take Jill to etiquette school to teach her how to glide down the stairs. You can't sit in a chair, but you're going to teach Jill how to glide down stairs. OK. Whatever.” (1:44:49-1:45:03 | Christi) LinksSubscribe to us on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC50aSBAYXH_9yU2YkKyXZ0w Subscribe to our Patreon: www.patreon.com/backtothebarreThank you to Ashley Jana for allowing us to use Electricity!! Follow her on IG HERE: https://instagram.com/ashleyjanamusic?igshid=YmMyMTA2M2Y=Download Electricity HERE: https://music.apple.com/us/album/electricity/1497482509?i=1497482510Follow Christi on IG: www.instagram.com/christilukasiakFollow Kelly on IG: www.instagram.com/kellylhyland Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

“We thought we’d take you guys on a little jaunt down memory lane,” says Christi, who describes, along with Kelly, what it was like, as regular moms from Pittsburgh, to attend the 2012 Teen Choice Awards. They recall which celebrities acted like fans toward the cast and which were really rude to them. The drama that went into getting ready–including Kelly throwing a pair of shoes at Christi– reflected the gray area between their old lives and their newfound fame. While it wasn’t always as much fun as it might have seemed, the thought of that time still makes them emotional. Later in the episode, they answer fan questions about the state of their friendship and how their time on Dance Moms has changed the way they view reality TV. The real drama, they explain, took place behind the scenes among the crew, including a strange image that one of the cast members found on one of the crew member’s laptop. Fame still feels strange though people still refer to them–literally–as icons all these years later.  Despite not seeing each other as often as they used to, Kelly and Christi always pick up right where they left off. Hear them find out which of the Golden Girls best represents each of the Dance Moms, their plans to open a bar/laundromat and why Kelly hates Mother’s Day.Quotes“This is before we realized that people had stylists…When people brought it up, I thought, ‘The Kardashians have stylists, not Kelly Hyland from Pittsburgh…‘That's just weird.’ (21:06-21:34 | Christi and Kelly)“I intentionally keep those shoes in the front of my shoe rack. They make me smile every time I look at them, because it was such a moment where I thought…‘How did we get here?’...” (28:43-29:07 | Christi)“I remember them saying, ‘Everybody practice ‘Call Me Maybe’ because they're going to have us sing it…’ I did not know the song. The entire world sang that song over and over and over and over again. I’m old. A little behind the times...still wearing a f***ing banana clip.” (30:43-31:18 | Christi and Kelly) “They give you Dixie cups of wine at the awards show. So, we had 27. I had one between each finger.” (34:52-34:58 | Christi)LinksSubscribe to us on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC50aSBAYXH_9yU2YkKyXZ0w Subscribe to our Patreon: www.patreon.com/backtothebarreThank you to Ashley Jana for allowing us to use Electricity!! Follow her on IG HERE: https://instagram.com/ashleyjanamusic?igshid=YmMyMTA2M2Y=Download Electricity HERE: https://music.apple.com/us/album/electricity/1497482509?i=1497482510Follow Christi on IG: www.instagram.com/christilukasiakFollow Kelly on IG: www.instagram.com/kellylhyland Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Thanks to Chloe for being our very special guest this episode!LinksSubscribe to us on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC50aSBAYXH_9yU2YkKyXZ0w Subscribe to our Patreon: www.patreon.com/backtothebarreThank you to Ashley Jana for allowing us to use Electricity!! Follow her on IG HERE: https://instagram.com/ashleyjanamusic?igshid=YmMyMTA2M2Y=Download Electricity HERE: https://music.apple.com/us/album/electricity/1497482509?i=1497482510Follow Christi on IG: www.instagram.com/christilukasiakFollow Kelly on IG: www.instagram.com/kellylhyland Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

“It’s finally time,” says Brooke about making her long-awaited guest appearance on Back to the Barre. Throughout the episode, her references reiterate the robust second life that Dance Moms has been given on TikTok. She explains what the platform has dubbed “The Brooke Effect,” and that she learned from many of her followers that her inability to remember much from her time filming the show is actually a trauma response. As Kelly points out, Brooke was the worst age to film the show, not only because she was basically going through puberty on camera. She was old enough to teach the younger girls how to kiss on the back of the bus while traveling to competitions, but too young to join Kelly and Christi as they passed wine back and forth through the cracks in the seats. Producers of all kinds continue to sell the Hyland girls short, as this episode shows Brooke recording her “Summertime Love Song” in L.A., where the girls have stayed to compete at Intensity Dance ahead of Nationals. Music producers autotuned her naturally lovely voice beyond recognition, and the show forced her to work with small-time producers who buried her singing career. According to Kelly, Brooke never made a penny from the record or the merch. Abby appointed herself director of Brooke’s music video which featured all the girls, even directing Maddie to dance in heavy traffic. Throughout today’s episode, they discuss behind-the-scenes stories and clips that were never aired, like what the big lips on Kendall’s costume were a tribute to and what Brooke’s young male co-star said about Brooke off-camera. We also learn why Kelly sat in a dumpster all afternoon and why Christi had to explain STDs to the girls at seven in the morning. Quotes“We're always on the bottom row, huh, Brookie? We lived there. That’s where all my money went. I paid rent on the third row of the pyramid.” (23:09-23:20 | Kelly) “People who grew up watching the show and are coming back have a better understanding of it now that they're adults…I mean, there is absolutely an element of crazy there ” (100:53-1:01:20 | Christi)“McKenzie was sucking her thumb and carrying around a blanket and I had a boyfriend who was driving around.” (1:07:59-1:08:06 | Brooke)LinksSubscribe to us on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC50aSBAYXH_9yU2YkKyXZ0w Subscribe to our Patreon: www.patreon.com/backtothebarreThank you to Ashley Jana for allowing us to use Electricity!! Follow her on IG HERE: https://instagram.com/ashleyjanamusic?igshid=YmMyMTA2M2Y=Download Electricity HERE: https://music.apple.com/us/album/electricity/1497482509?i=1497482510Follow Christi on IG: www.instagram.com/christilukasiakFollow Kelly on IG: www.instagram.com/kellylhyland Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

“This episode is infamous as far as bad behavior goes,” says Christi. It’s so full of offenses neither she nor Kelly can believe it’s still airing, especially with the way the world has changed in the ten years since it first aired. Kaya and her daughter Nicaya arrive to audition to be on the ALDC, or really, as the other Dance Moms realize but can’t break the fourth wall to say, to be on the show. Producers were always threatening to replace the Moms with new people if they didn’t cooperate, and Kaya and Nicaya were the first to come from far away to join the team/show. The group dance is its own source of cringe. The girls, including Paige, who is trying to learn the dance as her broken foot heals, portray children living in a mental institution. Abby waits until the last minute to include Nicaya in the dance when the girls perform it at Nationals in L.A. Nia’s solo is a tribute to Josephine Baker and Abby’s attempts to emulate it–she only ever attempted Nia’s choreography, Kelly points out–makes everyone react somewhere between a laugh and a shudder. Christi utters the phrase she regrets more than anything she has ever said on the show. She and Kelly explain why their husbands were the true unsung heroes of the show and the rare moment of sympathy they have for Abby in this episode. Quotes“It's amazing to me what an example of bad behavior across the board this show is and people continue to watch it…We wouldn't be doing 90% of the shit that we did.” (28:12-28:31 | Christi and Kelly)“Why does everybody just get to walk in and be in our dances?...You know I’m never on Abby's team, but I would be so pissed if somebody told me to put a kid in that I had never worked with right before Nationals.” (43:04-43:25 | Christi)“Melissa is asking Kaya about her previous relationships, and this actually made me laugh. She says, ‘What made you go from a man to a woman? And I am howling, because I know Melissa, and I know what Melissa likes about a man.” (1:10:11-1:10:29 | Christi)“Everybody makes Paige out to be stupid and can't ever learn or remember anything. She learned the dance in half the time as everybody else did. She punched herself in her face just as well as anybody else.” (1:08:02-1:08:16 | Christi and Kelly) LinksSubscribe to us on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC50aSBAYXH_9yU2YkKyXZ0w Subscribe to our Patreon: www.patreon.com/backtothebarreThank you to Ashley Jana for allowing us to use Electricity!! Follow her on IG HERE: https://instagram.com/ashleyjanamusic?igshid=YmMyMTA2M2Y=Download Electricity HERE: https://music.apple.com/us/album/electricity/1497482509?i=1497482510Follow Christi on IG: www.instagram.com/christilukasiakFollow Kelly on IG: www.instagram.com/kellylhyland Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

“This show is just about you and me being assholes,” says Kelly about the latest episode of ‘Dance Moms,’ where the girls prepare for and perform in Abby’s annual recital, which Kelly and Christi both admit is incredible. Less incredible is the girls’ ability to dance hip-hop, and since Paige’s foot is still broken she has to figure out how to dance from the waist up. Abby brings Payton in to join the “Light My Fire” group number, which means Leslie is back and lashing out at everyone. She tells Kelly she needs to be in both therapy and AA. Knowing she is being set up by producers to look like a fool yet again, Kelly storms out and Christi curses at producers in her defense. She is also put in charge of gathering together the ALDC alumnae class of 1985, even though most of Abby’s former students want nothing to do with her. She also has to throw a party in which Cathy crashes and tries to steal one of Abby’s potential new students. The more fun task was playing guest bartender with Christi at a local club and seeing Jill get wild with patrons. Holly, of course, refused to step behind the bar. Since this was the first recital since the show had aired, the audience was suddenly packed with adoring fans. Christi describes the feeling of hearing everyone go wild for the girls when they took the stage for their first number. She also explains why for years, she found countless pairs of underwear under the seats of her car. Quotes“At this point ‘Dance Moms’ had been airing. So if any of Abby’s alumni wanted to be found they would have crawled out of the woodwork. Those people did not want to be found.” (25:10-25:20 | Christi)“At this point, I am over being made to look like an ass, based on lies. If you want to air the truth about me, whatever, I live up to what I do. But when you start lying, and have other people saying it on national television, I start to have a problem.” (1:11:26-1:11:50 | Kelly) “I remember us sitting in the audience, sobbing. I think at that point, we thought, ‘How did we get here?’...That's one of my favorite memories of Dance Moms’” (1:22:46-1:23:27 | Christi)LinksSubscribe to us on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC50aSBAYXH_9yU2YkKyXZ0w Subscribe to our Patreon: www.patreon.com/backtothebarreThank you to Ashley Jana for allowing us to use Electricity!! Follow her on IG HERE: https://instagram.com/ashleyjanamusic?igshid=YmMyMTA2M2Y=Download Electricity HERE: https://music.apple.com/us/album/electricity/1497482509?i=1497482510Follow Christi on IG: www.instagram.com/christilukasiakFollow Kelly on IG: www.instagram.com/kellylhyland Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this episode of Dance Moms, the girls are headed to Myrtle Beach, South Carolina to compete and they are joined by the Candy Apples. This is the episode where Jill and Cathy truly start to despise each other. It’s a hatred that lasts to this day, though no one can say just why. During rehearsal, Christi and Melissa get into a fight and Melissa pulls Maddie’s solo. She decides she doesn’t have to show up for filming even though Kelly shows up when her girls are out with injuries. It’s part of the contract to be on the show. Still, once they arrived in Myrtle Beach, Melissa and Christi were taking pictures together on jet skis and going out to dinner. The Moms had no choice but to fight with each other, and they had no choice but to get along. Kelly misses going to the competitions and watching the girls dance, although during filming those were the longest and most grueling days. Others aren’t so fond of their time with the ALDC. Chloe, Paige and Brooke were too traumatized to continue to dance, and many of Abby’s former students message Christi and Kelly to share their horror stories. Quotes“I was watching it yesterday, and I actually missed it. I don't know if it’s because I was sick or what, but I was just sitting there watching us on our way to a competition, thinking, ‘Oh, I miss watching them dance.’ It was our life. Since our kids were two. There was probably not a day that went by that we didn't sit and watch them dance. It's crazy.” (10:40-10:59 | Kelly) “All the former students that weren't on the show will DM me and say things about Abby. And they have stories that are 15 times worse. I saw one girl…who said, ‘I was in my kitchen cooking, and  ‘Dance Moms’ came on in the background. I heard Abby’s voice and I dropped my plate on the floor. It just shattered everywhere. Just hearing her voice’… And she was there a long time ago. She was a senior when our kids were babies.” (16:00-16:44 | Kelly and Christi) “I don't know if fans know that. The Candy Apples and the Abby Lee Dance Company kids were friends...It was lunchtime, and we’d say, ‘Look, Kelly's hungry. My brain hurts. We're not on camera, so we don't have to fight.’” (1:09:40-1:10:21 (Kelly and Christi)LinksSubscribe to us on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC50aSBAYXH_9yU2YkKyXZ0w Subscribe to our Patreon: www.patreon.com/backtothebarreThank you to Ashley Jana for allowing us to use Electricity!! Follow her on IG HERE: https://instagram.com/ashleyjanamusic?igshid=YmMyMTA2M2Y=Download Electricity HERE: https://music.apple.com/us/album/electricity/1497482509?i=1497482510Follow Christi on IG: www.instagram.com/christilukasiakFollow Kelly on IG: www.instagram.com/kellylhyland Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

“I held it in this whole episode but then I went balls to the wall,” says Christi of the explosive fight that ends the latest episode of Dance Moms. This week’s competition takes place in Philadelphia, where the girls dance a ballet routine despite not having had a ballet class in three years. Chloe remembers this as the hardest dance she’s ever had to do. Christi remembers that they had a really nice steak dinner at Palm. Brooke has an acro solo called “The Diary of Anne Frank,” and Kelly says she’s pretty sure Anne Frank wasn’t doing cartwheels. Since Paige has broken her foot, Abby puts Kendall into the group dance even though she is not part of the team. The other Moms are mad because their girls have given up so much of their time and energy not just to dance but to the show. The Moms joke that everywhere Jill goes one of the dancers mysteriously breaks a foot, first Taylor and now Paige. Meanwhile, Brooke’s back has gotten so sore it hurts for her to breathe, and Kelly finally pulls Brooke’s solo. Ever the opportunist, Jill asks if Kendall can take Brooke’s place. Christi shares the story behind Abby calling Chloe a sneak and her a whore who sells t-shirts in a bar. The truth is, as usual, much different from Abby’s twisted narrative and production’s deceptive editing. Quotes“They showed Jill and Kendall trying to make it over the greatest crater I've ever seen. I mean, at this point, it's like a shelf in the ocean. If the parking lot were full of water, you would drown in that bitch.” (26:12-26:27 | Christi)“That's the third time Abby has said Brooke broke her toe, not her foot. Like she’s trying to downplay it. I mean, every time I say something to somebody, am I supposed to say ‘Oh, it was her third metatarsal or whatever?’ It's her freaking foot.” (31:42-31:58 | Kelly)“Abby says that she sees a lot of mistakes and their ballet steps are definitely not up to par. Because we haven’t had ballet class in three years and only a five minute rehearsal. Yeah. ‘Well, we touched the ballet barre this week. We're magically all Anna Pavlova now.’” (1:01:43-1:01:58 | Kelly and Christi) LinksSubscribe to us on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC50aSBAYXH_9yU2YkKyXZ0w Subscribe to our Patreon: www.patreon.com/backtothebarreThank you to Ashley Jana for allowing us to use Electricity!! Follow her on IG HERE: https://instagram.com/ashleyjanamusic?igshid=YmMyMTA2M2Y=Download Electricity HERE: https://music.apple.com/us/album/electricity/1497482509?i=1497482510Follow Christi on IG: www.instagram.com/christilukasiakFollow Kelly on IG: www.instagram.com/kellylhyland Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

“I can’t believe this is real life,” says Christi on this latest episode of Back to the Barre, “We’re standing there arguing on national television over a bow.” Jill and Kendall are back, having left Candy Apples, and Jill is being accused of stealing a two-dollar hair bow at the Starpower competition in Lancaster, PA. Before that though, at the beginning of the episode, she is accused of stealing Kelly’s hairstyle. Meanwhile, Abby criticizes Nia’s hairstyle, telling her to fix it, and Holly fires back at Abby to fix everything about herself. Seeing famously stoic and diplomatic Dr. Holly act more like Kelly and Christi has all the girls in hysterics.The casting director of Drop Dead Diva calls to say–to no one’s surprise–that Maddie has been chosen for the role that all the girls auditioned for the week prior, even though the part was promised to Paige.A young man named Nick joins the girls this week to perform the part of the vampire in a Twilight-themed group dance and Abby openly directs him to bite the girls and vice versa. She has also given nicknames to both Brooke and Mackenzie’s bellies, which is why Brooke always wears a shirt over her leotard. Still the most shocking part of the episode is that Abby is wearing white in one of her interviews. Quotes“I would pay all of the money in the world to see Abby do an arabesque. And not because of any weight thing. I'm just saying, she can't do it.” (30:07-30:16 | Christi) “That's why Brooke always wears a shirt. Abby had names for both Brooke and Mackenzie’s bellies, which is a horrible thing. ‘Take your belly out of here,’ she tells Mackenzie. But then people get mad at me when I say to Abby, ‘Oh, stop eating. That's why you’re fat.’ But she says that to my daughter and other girls in the studio every day.” (42:54-43:21 | Kelly)“And I love Holly in this moment. I want more of this Holly. Show up, please. She said, ‘I'm entitled to my opinion because I'm 42 years old and a free American citizen. I get to say what I believe, what I want, andI stand on my credentials and my knowledge, something you can never take away.’ Do you see what happens right then? Well, Abby cannot go toe-to-toe with Holly. So she goes after Nia.” (47:03-47:28 | Christi) LinksSubscribe to us on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC50aSBAYXH_9yU2YkKyXZ0w Subscribe to our Patreon: www.patreon.com/backtothebarreThank you to Ashley Jana for allowing us to use Electricity!! Follow her on IG HERE: https://instagram.com/ashleyjanamusic?igshid=YmMyMTA2M2Y=Download Electricity HERE: https://music.apple.com/us/album/electricity/1497482509?i=1497482510Follow Christi on IG: www.instagram.com/christilukasiakFollow Kelly on IG: www.instagram.com/kellylhyland Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

“I guess everyone is just happy for me to be born!” says Kelly. In this episode, the Moms gather at her house to celebrate her 41st birthday, the only one the show seems to celebrate, she points out. Leslie shows up late and continues to be entitled and to insult everyone before throwing her mic pac across the room and leaving. Christi continues to be annoyed by Leslie but can’t tell if she’s rolling her eyes in annoyance or from all the wine served in Kelly’s Lolita glasses. Christi says it was hard–particularly for their kids, who felt like they had to defend their mothers–to be called drunks on TV when it was so far from reality. Still, her favorite picture is of herself and Kelly standing next to a sign that says, “No Alcohol Beyond This Point,” which college kids across the country have blown up into banners and hung in their dorm rooms. Kelly rolls her eyes in this episode, too, but not at Payton dancing on stage during the Starbound competition in Atlanta like the show made it seem. Early on in the series, the Moms used to try to control their facial expressions so they couldn’t be taken out of context, but they gave up trying because the producers misrepresented them anyway. Chloe returns from her school camping trip with a whole new confidence. Abby keeps calling her park ranger and Yogi Bear, despite the reference clearly going over Chloe’s head. She makes a dig at the Girl Scouts even though she was a Girl Scout herself and recently put her uniform up for auction. Quotes“Leslie was like a woodpecker just pecking at your brain the whole time she would set up there. And I think that we knew when to give each other a minute, the main cast. Sometimes like even when you're fighting, somebody just needs a minute. Like, let it breathe for a minute. She's just relentless. It's like a teenage boy when he first kisses you. And you think, ‘Whoa, whoa, buddy.’ Not so intense. Give me some breathing room.’” (46:34-47:11 | Christi)“I don't know if I rolled my eyes at Leslie or my eyes were just rolling around from all the drinking. One of my eyes was over here and the other one was this way, it was terrible. It was embarrassing to watch.” (1:21:23-1:23:25 | Christi) LinksSubscribe to us on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC50aSBAYXH_9yU2YkKyXZ0w Subscribe to our Patreon: www.patreon.com/backtothebarreThank you to Ashley Jana for allowing us to use Electricity!! Follow her on IG HERE: https://instagram.com/ashleyjanamusic?igshid=YmMyMTA2M2Y=Download Electricity HERE: https://music.apple.com/us/album/electricity/1497482509?i=1497482510Follow Christi on IG: www.instagram.com/christilukasiakFollow Kelly on IG: www.instagram.com/kellylhyland Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

“It’s like Cinderella:” says Christi of the latest episode of Dance Moms, “You can go to the ball if you get your work done, but I’m going to give you a lot more work.” The girls are headed to Akron, Ohio to compete against the Candy Apples including Kendall, who has recently joined after leaving Abby’s studio. Abby gives Paige a solo so that she can try for a title and thinks Paige should be thrilled, but Paige knows–like everyone else–that a solo means a week of torture. Especially since Abby does everything she can to make sure Paige can’t rehearse, including holding a random gymnastics class. Kelly notices that Abby was starting to make the Moms confront her in pairs of two so that she can use the camera time to say something nasty about both Moms’ children to the audience. Kelly decides to choreograph Paige’s dance herself with the little knowledge she has left over from her own years dancing with Abby. They have to practice in the dreaded Studio C because if they get caught in Studio A, Abby will get mad and not let Paige compete at all. Watching Paige perform her routine on stage, Christi says she never wanted someone to win so badly in her life, as she wanted Paige to win at that moment. Kelly thinks Paige should have won for going up against Abby and for all the times she was set up to fail for the sake of drama. Viewers figure out that Abby listens to the Back to the Barre podcast and has signed up to their Patreon just to keep insisting that she never threw a chair at Paige. Between Jill’s apple ring, Abby’s necklace that looks like bubble gum from a vending machine and her cheap orange rhinestones–that match Christi’s!--this episode gives the Moms plenty of reasons to drink.Quotes“It’s like Cinderella: You can go to the ball if you get all your work done, but I’m going to give you a lot more work.” (51:31-51:37 | Christi) “Here we are, now Chloe got practice all week, and now she's getting all these corrections in the pep talk. And Paige got, ‘Look at the judges.’ No practice all week and the only thing she's told is ‘Look at the judges.’ And Chloe's not going for a title. It’s just… it's bullshit. It's bullshit.” (1:12:38-1:13:01 | Kelly)LinksSubscribe to us on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC50aSBAYXH_9yU2YkKyXZ0w Subscribe to our Patreon: www.patreon.com/backtothebarreThank you to Ashley Jana for allowing us to use Electricity!! Follow her on IG HERE: https://instagram.com/ashleyjanamusic?igshid=YmMyMTA2M2Y=Download Electricity HERE: https://music.apple.com/us/album/electricity/1497482509?i=1497482510Follow Christi on IG: www.instagram.com/christilukasiakFollow Kelly on IG: www.instagram.com/kellylhyland Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

“This one’s interesting because Abby is nice,” says Christi of this special episode of Dance Moms, where Abby counts down her top ten favorite dances from the show so far. Unsurprisingly, Kelly and Christi can’t understand her choices. What is most surprising, though–shocking really–is the praise Abby heaps onto Chloe and Brooke during the episode. If she had spoken even a tenth of those words to them while they were still her students, Kelly insists, Brooke wouldn’t have ended up hating dance and may have ended up performing in Cirque du Soleil after all. Instead, she says, Abby always compared people, especially to their closest family members, something Kelly can’t understand and Christi knows still bothers many of those people to this day.Among the dances in the countdown is the “Pinup Girls” trio performed by Choe, Paige and Maddie that, Christi points out,  is where it all began. In fact, the show was supposed to begin from a whole other angle, but the fighting and drama that stemmed from Chloe’s headband falling over her eyes was so good, producers knew they had to open with it. That, and Kelly reminds them, it featured the famous scene of the two of them sneaking off to the bar while Abby was attempting to organize things from the dressing room. Christi says the only thing that was remarkable about Chloe’s headband falling was that she still did a series of aerials while blinded. Discover which dances the Moms are sure would get them canceled today, which of Abby’s many annoying habits is one of Christi’s biggest pet peeves, and why Christi made Melissa sign a contract before she would work on Maddie’s costume. Quotes“Abby had great things to say. They must have offered her a bonus for what she was saying, because I'm telling you, it had to kill her. They said, ‘Every compliment you give, you get a $5,000 bonus. And she said, ‘Christie is my favorite and Kelly's smart.’”  (10:17-10:39 | Christi) “Cathy, aka the hick from Ohio. Again, if I were from Ohio, I'd be so pissed. The whole show. Meanwhile, Ohio’s 30 centimeters over the Pittsburgh border, so if Cathy’s a hick, so are we.” (43:44-44:04 | Christi)LinksSubscribe to us on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC50aSBAYXH_9yU2YkKyXZ0w Subscribe to our Patreon: www.patreon.com/backtothebarreThank you to Ashley Jana for allowing us to use Electricity!! Follow her on IG HERE: https://instagram.com/ashleyjanamusic?igshid=YmMyMTA2M2Y=Download Electricity HERE: https://music.apple.com/us/album/electricity/1497482509?i=1497482510Follow Christi on IG: www.instagram.com/christilukasiakFollow Kelly on IG: www.instagram.com/kellylhyland Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

“These girls were being micro-analyzed,” says Christi about the pressure the girls continued to face as dancers and reality show stars. They’re competing at Starpower this week, the largest competition in the United States, Abby keeps reminding everyone. It’s so big, in fact, it’s split into two venues, and Abby sees an opportunity to sign Maddie up for two solos. Once again, she and Melissa form a secret plan to get Maddie ahead, use bad acting to cover it up, and everyone else has to keep their mouths shut and pretend their daughters have a chance to win. Brooke has taken the weekend off to attend her first school dance, which Kelly had to fight with producers to allow. She always made sure her girls didn’t miss out on big events for the sake of dance–or Dance Moms. Still, she and Christi feel guilty to this day for what they put their daughters through–as well as the rest of their kids–for the sake of both.Kelly can’t share the moment with Brooke because producers need her at the dance studio to fight with Leslie. Payton returns to fill in for Brooke. And considering she had a costume custom-made for the competition, it is obvious that was a move planned by producers well in advance. Previously, Payton had pushed Paige flat on her back and producers saw it as an opportunity for Kelly to confront Leslie and start a fight with the whole group about bullying. Christi and Kelly discuss just how much these young dancers had riding on their shoulders, just from Abby alone. They suspect that immediately after every competition, producers showed Abby footage of each dance so she could analyze everyone’s mistakes. This is why Abby always arrived in the dressing room after everyone else with specific critiques that would have been impossible to see from the audience. Quotes“Isn’t it crazy to think that the baby from Dance Moms is now as old as the oldest from Dance Moms?” (35:35-35:42 | Christi)“We all know a lot of old routines. Why didn’t all the kids go over there and do them? We could have all done our real solos. Why couldn’t we do ‘Ma, He’s Making Eyes at Me,’ because that dance beat “Cry” a bunch of times in real life. Or Paige and Brooke could have done their solos that they didn’t get to do two weeks before.” (1:02:13-1:02:36 | Christi and Kelly) LinksSubscribe to us on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC50aSBAYXH_9yU2YkKyXZ0w Subscribe to our Patreon: www.patreon.com/backtothebarreThank you to Ashley Jana for allowing us to use Electricity!! Follow her on IG HERE: https://instagram.com/ashleyjanamusic?igshid=YmMyMTA2M2Y=Download Electricity HERE: https://music.apple.com/us/album/electricity/1497482509?i=1497482510Follow Christi on IG: www.instagram.com/christilukasiakFollow Kelly on IG: www.instagram.com/kellylhyland Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

“This is all bad acting,” says Christi about the episode of Dance Moms titled “I Know What You Did Last Competition.” Like a pair of detectives, she and Kelly spend this episode of Back to the Barre pointing out all the behaviors that gave Melissa and Abby away as cheaters and (bad) liars. Abby and Melissa had conspired before the previous competition to scratch the cd containing Maddie’s choreography music, knowing that judges would automatically declare Maddie the winner just for completing the dance uninterrupted. In this latest Dance Moms episode, Abby wields her trademark hypocrisy, Melissa uses clever wording and the two stage an over-the-top fake fight to try to cover it up. Nobody’s buying it, though, especially with all they’ve learned in the last 11 years.The inherent problem with Dance Moms–and one of the many reasons they both agree children shouldn’t participate in reality TV— is that the Moms are paid to fight, but Abby would take those fights out on their daughters. So Chloe, Paige and Brooke were constantly punished because Kelly and Christi carried the show. Abby knew this and took full advantage of it. Every week, the Hylands  were set up–by Abby and the producers— to look stupid. This week, Abby used the costumes to humiliate them, putting the girls in the wrong sizes and not letting Paige wear the green dress so she could stand out. These days Abby hocks counterfeit versions of Paige’s costumes and props online. The real ones remain packed away in Kelly’s house. Christi shares her favorite-ever Lifetime movie and the random words that make her sick. Quotes“There are a lot of little clues–if you know Abby and Melissa–throughout this episode that I really caught on to…Normally in a situation like this Abby would have thrown it in the girls’ faces, but here she wants to move on. She just dismissed it because…she would have looked guilty.” (20:51-21:23 | Kelly and Christi)“Abby tells the audience that she’s going to take the contract that I signed and make me read it, because she doesn’t think I read. I don’t read. And let me tell you, if I was going to read something it sure as hell wouldn’t be her contract.” (32:36-32:48 | Kelly)“This fight reads so insincere and fake from Melissa. Go back and watch it. It’s so not real.” (41:57-42:09 | Christi)LinksSubscribe to us on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC50aSBAYXH_9yU2YkKyXZ0w Subscribe to our Patreon: www.patreon.com/backtothebarreThank you to Ashley Jana for allowing us to use Electricity!! Follow her on IG HERE: https://instagram.com/ashleyjanamusic?igshid=YmMyMTA2M2Y=Download Electricity HERE: https://music.apple.com/us/album/electricity/1497482509?i=1497482510Follow Christi on IG: www.instagram.com/christilukasiakFollow Kelly on IG: www.instagram.com/kellylhyland Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

“Every woman in America has this on her refrigerator,” says Christi of yet another line that Kelly uttered in pure frustration that would go on to become one of the most quoted lines in Dance Moms history. Kelly and the other Moms have been spending extra time making costumes that they pay Abby to provide while Abby sits eating in the McDonald’s parking lot. When Kelly fails to get rubber stoppers for the chair Paige was using in her dance number (which Kelly explains was a setup by production) Abby throws the chair at Paige in frustration. Kelly barges into the studio and screams at Abby “Stop eating! That’s why you’re fat!” and storms out, taking Brooke and Paige with her. Now that they’re filming the show, Abby doesn’t need Melissa’s money and Melissa doesn’t have time to work at the studio’s front desk. So, while Maddie is technically on the bottom of the pyramid this week because she forgot her steps at the last competition, she is also there–as Christi points out–because Melissa hasn’t been sucking up as much to Abby lately. Given their long history, Kelly knew instantly what Abby was up to, though no one believed her at the time. She talks about how flustered she felt being made to look like she had failed her daughter because she couldn’t reveal production’s mistake on camera. She also points out the hypocrisy of the fans’ negative reaction to her calling Abby fat while Abby calls her idiot and stupid multiple times per episode, often screaming inches from their face.Quotes“Your experience was giving me heart palpitations. You know how they say that if you have a twin that you can feel their ghost pain? I was that way with all the Moms.” (41:09-41:23 | Christi)“I crack up every time I see those shots of the cameraman running after us. I know they hate life.” (46:26-46:31 | Christi)“Here's my favorite: Abby says, ‘You were a mean girl when you were 12 and you're still a mean girl.’ She just threw a chair at a child.” (48:17-48:27 | Christi) “People get mad at me because I called Abby fat. Once. She calls me stupid and dingbat three times an episode.” (1:23:39-1:23:46 | Kelly)LinksSubscribe to us on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC50aSBAYXH_9yU2YkKyXZ0w Subscribe to our Patreon: www.patreon.com/backtothebarreThank you to Ashley Jana for allowing us to use Electricity!! Follow her on IG HERE: https://instagram.com/ashleyjanamusic?igshid=YmMyMTA2M2Y=Download Electricity HERE: https://music.apple.com/us/album/electricity/1497482509?i=1497482510Follow Christi on IG: www.instagram.com/christilukasiakFollow Kelly on IG: www.instagram.com/kellylhyland Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

“You can tell that things are starting to take a dark turn,” says Christi of this episode of Dance Moms. Abby is starting to take her already toxic tactics to a new extreme. To punish Chloe for winning the Joffrey ballet scholarship and for getting a solo this week, Abby makes her stand at the front of the studio while the other girls critique her. She triangulates Chloe, Brooke and Maddie against each other, telling each one that they are the team’s true leader while also implying they are each its weakest link. She threatens to have Christi arrested and thrown off the show.  Of course, Abby can’t take criticism herself. Kelly tells her that her choreography is getting stale, voicing a complaint held by many on the team. Chloe and Brooke had each complained that all of their dances were the same moves in varying order. Additionally, this made them even more difficult to learn in the few hours that the girls (other than Maddie) were given to learn them.  Rather than receive this input like an adult, Abby corrects Kelly’s grammar, screaming inches from her face, “Christi and I!!” This phrase was quickly added to the Dance Moms fandom lexicon and is still a frequent inside joke between Christi and Kelly. Showing the team who their true leader is, Abby abandons them at the competition in Upland, CA and heads to Florida.                                      Quotes “I think all of our light and bright fun might be coming to an end.” (10:51-10:54 | Christi)  “Holly said it best: Abby is an abomination of evil.” (18:35-18:42 | Christi) “Chloe and Abby are wearing matching outfits. They're both wearing blue with rhinestone crap. Chloe actually has blue rhinestone earrings on so we need to drink because I'm ashamed.” (58:41-58:52 | Christi) “So Abby tells me that I'm always unhappy. And I just say, ‘Abby, your choreography sucks.’” (1:35:56-1:36:02 | Kelly) “I remember looking over and seeing Abby in your face. I can vividly remember my perspective. So it was really weird for me to see it on camera from a different angle because I'm standing on the other side of you. It’s burned in my memory how close she was to your face.” (1:37:38-1:38:01 | Christi)   Links Subscribe to us on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC50aSBAYXH_9yU2YkKyXZ0w  Subscribe to our Patreon: www.patreon.com/backtothebarre   Thank you to Ashley Jana for allowing us to use Electricity!! Follow her on IG HERE: https://instagram.com/ashleyjanamusic?igshid=YmMyMTA2M2Y=   Download Electricity HERE: https://music.apple.com/us/album/electricity/1497482509?i=1497482510   Follow Christi on IG: www.instagram.com/christilukasiak   Follow Kelly on IG: www.instagram.com/kellylhyland Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

“Didn’t you just want to smack Abby?” says Kelly while reviewing this special episode of Dance Moms– the top-20 countdown of “Abby’s Most OMG Moments." Christi is happy to report that this was the second-lowest rated episode of Season 2, despite Abby’s insistence that fans only tuned into the show to watch her. Watching this countdown made the cast aware of several things they had never realized about the show. Kelly realizes how funny Holly really is and that Leslie only complained shout Peyton’s outfit to get more screen time. Christi and Kelly get to the root of Abby’s insults– she always ridicules the thing she is jealous of– Holly’s education, Cathy’s business savvy and her much younger husband, and all of their children. Recently, Christi saw a picture of Abby’s mother as a young woman and noted that Mrs. Miller looked a lot like Paige and Brooke–the two main targets of Abby’s wrath.  Abby’s jealousy doesn’t end there–or anywhere it seems. She also hated that producers loved Kelly’s mother’s cooking so much they asked her to cater for the show. She was jealous of the professional management teams the girls began to hire as they became famous, and she threw a 30 minute tantrum when producers failed to offer her a donut. Quotes “So that just goes to show maybe people weren't tuning in for Abby. Maybe they liked our girls. Who knows?” (11:03-11:10 | Christi) “Holly’s funny. I don’t remember her being so funny. I don’t remember Holly being so funny. When we filmed she very rarely spoke.” (24:23-24:34 | Kelly) SM Quote “Anytime there was a dumb errand, Abby would send us. Meanwhile, joke's on you. I can't wait to get the hell out there. Yeah, amen.” (27:06-27:13 | Christi) “Somebody posted a picture of Mrs. Miller when she was young. She surprisingly looked like Chloe and Paige– tall, thin, beautiful. She was very pretty. They said, maybe that's why Abby hated those two. (33:29-33:47 | Christi)  “My mother was just the sweetest, kindest woman. There was not a person in the world that didn't like my mother. Abby only stopped liking her when she started catering the show. She sure as hell didn’t mind eating her cookies for the last 30 years.” (54:24-54:47 | Kelly and Christi) “Oh, didn’t you want to just smack Abby? I should have smacked her right then, I could have gotten out of two seasons of filming.” (57:12-57:20 | Kelly)   Links Subscribe to us on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC50aSBAYXH_9yU2YkKyXZ0w  Subscribe to our Patreon: www.patreon.com/backtothebarre   Thank you to Ashley Jana for allowing us to use Electricity!! Follow her on IG HERE: https://instagram.com/ashleyjanamusic?igshid=YmMyMTA2M2Y=   Download Electricity HERE: https://music.apple.com/us/album/electricity/1497482509?i=1497482510   Follow Christi on IG: www.instagram.com/christilukasiak   Follow Kelly on IG: www.instagram.com/kellylhyland Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

“There was a lot of infantilizing of Kendall,” says James Mahan, former “Dance Moms” producer and the rare genuine friend that Kelly and Christi maintain from their days on the show. He returns to share more behind-the-scenes perspectives and brand new stories. Some of his observations a casual fan could make, like noticing that Jill only ever refers to her daughter as “little.” On the other hand, he explains the complicated politics behind staging competitions on reality TV. Christi shares the conspiracy theory that diehard, deep-diving fans of the show have developed as to why Maddie famously forgot her steps. They all laugh at the memory of Abby insisting that everyone awkwardly shoehorn the name of the studio into all on-camera conversations  and that they wear nothing but her merch while filming. They admire the clever way Cathy always managed to get around this.  The girls start this “Dance Moms” episode by performing for the judges at the Joffrey, and end up at the Starbound Dance Competition in Paramus.  Quotes “I just feel like every time I did an interview with Jill, she’d say, “Kendall’s a beautiful little dancer. It was always ‘little.’ You’d hear that word in every interview. There was a lot of infantilizing of Kendall that happened.” (16:18-16:40 | James, Christy and Kelly) “Abby would not say ‘Candy Apples’ on camera because she didn't want to promote Cathy’s business. But we always had to say ALDC. I like that Kathy found a way around saying ‘Abby Lee Dance Company.’ So Cathy and Abby both were quite funny about not giving the other any free publicity.” (26:40-27:03) | Christi and James) “Am I allowed to chew gum in Jersey? Because I got yelled at once for chewing gum in New York. She yelled at me that it wasn't Jersey.” (33:55-34:01 | Christi) “It was hilarious when Jill said, ‘Kendall looks like an angel. A little angel.’  Jill, she's actually dressed as an angel. So, yeah she did.. So did all the other kids in the dance.” (41:54-42:18 | Christi) Links Subscribe to us on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC50aSBAYXH_9yU2YkKyXZ0w  Subscribe to our Patreon: www.patreon.com/backtothebarre   Thank you to Ashley Jana for allowing us to use Electricity!! Follow her on IG HERE: https://instagram.com/ashleyjanamusic?igshid=YmMyMTA2M2Y=   Download Electricity HERE: https://music.apple.com/us/album/electricity/1497482509?i=1497482510   Follow Christi on IG: www.instagram.com/christilukasiak   Follow Kelly on IG: www.instagram.com/kellylhyland Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

“I hear and validate your frustrations,” says former Dance Moms producer James Mahan. He joins today’s episode to discuss some of the funniest behind-the-scenes moments with Christi and Kelly, and confirm some of their long-standing issues. The off-screen banter between Christi and James during the show’s filming resulted in some of Christi’s funniest on-screen moments. The majority of James’ time was spent fighting with Abby. He had to convince her to stop ripping off famous dance routines, not make obscure dance references that the audience wouldn’t understand, and to let someone other than Maddie be on top of the pyramid every week. On this episode of Dance Moms, the girls are in New York to audition for the prestigious Joffrey Ballet School. Abby tries to teach them two years’ worth of ballet in an hour. Maddie gets upset when she realizes that she forgot her ballet shoes at the hotel. The cruelty many of the show’s producers showed to the girls when they were at their most upset was what made James leave reality TV. But the cast loved him because he acted like a real human, unlike many of the show’s other producers. Hear James tell the story that he calls “the nail in the coffin,” and the one where he got hit by a car in slow motion while walking back to his hotel after a Madonna concert. Quotes:“I would conduct interviews after we'd filmed the week. My interviews were with Christi and Kelly, sometimes Dr. Holly and Abby. Brooke, Paige and I were pretty close. So I was able to work with them and have it sound natural. Because there's an art to the interview and you have to remind people of what happened to get them to talk about the events to make it sound natural.” (17:25-18:04 | James)“We are not the cutest. We’re just disgusted. Always. All the time. Just in a state of absolute disgust.” (28:55-29:05 | Kelly and Christi) “The knock-off choreography from Chicago was a little foreshadowing of Abby's little stint in prison. Or we can say it's foreshadowing of Kelly getting arrested in the Bronx.” (32:28-32:49 | Christi, Kelly, James) “Paige says it's weird being in jail because she’s never been there before. Well, thank goodness, Paige. You’re 11.” (33:16-33:26 | Kelly) “We were visiting in LA and we were in the editing booth. And I remember seeing somebody reach up and pull a piece of paper off the wall that basically had our names and what our characters were because they didn't want me to see it. It wouldn't be that hard to figure out. Christy: jealous. Kelly: party mom.” (39:17-39:38 | Christi)“I mean, a gay club loves a Dance Mom. That's all I'm saying. Yeah. Oh, it's been proven.” (50:22-50:28 | Christi and James)“I block out a lot of things, James. I don't remember a lot of stuff. There's something to be said for selective memory.” (53:59-54:06 | Kelly and James)“When I'm on my home computer our audience says Christi looks like I'm a news anchor and Kelly looks like she's a remote correspondent in Afghanistan. I don't care if you don't like it. Don't watch me. Because it was a war zone in the ALDC. It was a war zone. That's why I have this background.” (1:02:56-1:03:20 | Kelly and Christi)   Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

“You know who gives them body image issues? Abby,” says Kelly of this latest episode of Dance Moms. A scout from the prestigious Joffrey ballet company will be the audience of this week’s competition. Oddly, Abby chooses to choreograph a gymnastics-heavy number with a plastic surgery/body insecurity theme called “Nip/Tuck”. This leads to Christi and Kelly discussing what plastic surgery they and Abby have and haven’t had. Christi credits botox with transforming her signature “angry eyes,” Kelly believes the show still owes her a boob job and they both agree that Abby has had so much work done on her face since the show began that she’s now unrecognizable. During the show, Abby warns the girls not to grow up to look like their mothers. Christi reveals the truly despicable manner in which Abby used the girls to poke at their mothers’ insecurities.Maddie takes after her mother in that they both continue to receive special treatment. Maddie gets extra time and personalized attention from Abby that allows her to perfect her solos. Producers let Melissa opt out of filming whenever she gets uncomfortable. This leaves the other Moms to fight, confess and cause the drama that makes the show a hit and Maddie a star. When Nia injures her foot, Abby treats the situation much differently than when the other girls were hurt. If there’s a bright spot amidst all the chaos it’s the cheese log and chicken wings at Mohan’s. Christi and Kelly’s love of lobster is fulfilled at the airport hotdog stand where they eat bisque squeezed out of a plastic bag.Quotes“It’s always about Abby. It’s always about her. Except when things go wrong. Then it’s about everybody else.” (12:51-12:59 | Christi and Kelly)“I can tell when I'm doing a pickup because I am the world's worst actress. Give me all the Razzies.” (14:25-14:31 | Christi)“Abby tells us the name of the group dance and I am scowling. That’s back when I still could scowl because I didn’t have Botox.” (19:15:-19:19 | Christi) “God forbid the producers had gotten me a free boob job. They gave us a $15 lunch, you think they were going to you boobs? Please. But they’re driving around in Maseratis. (20:43-21:02 | Kelly and Christi)“I think we’re supposed to be trying to teach our girls to be comfortable in their own skin and not change that skin. Well, look I’m going to get back on that because I’ve changed my skin a few times. So, do whatever you want to do to make you happy.” (25:45-21:57 | Christi)“If your kids get to be the superstars of the show, you need to step up and say things, too. Because we as the moms are carrying the drama and your kids are benefitting.” (59:37-59:48 | Christi)“I’m going to tell you something that Chloe has said to me time and time again: the dances were so hard to remember because it was the same steps every week just in a different order. That’s why it was so easy to mess them up. No wonder they got confused.” (1:18:13-1:18:39 | Christi and Kelly) Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.