Nearly eight years after she stopped living on the dance floor, JoJo Siwa is simply living for the very active group chat she shares with her fellow Dance Moms alum Chloé Lukasiak, Kendall Vertes, Kalani Hilliker, Brooke Hyland and Paige Hyland.
"I don't respond, but I die laughing about what they said," JoJo revealed, reflecting on the flurry of texting that went down before the group joined E! News in studio for an exclusive interview. "'Do you have a hairspray? Does anyone have a nail clipper?' I was like, 'You girls.'"
There was a fair amount of outfit coordination happening as well, after Chloé and Kendall showed up to film the May 1 reunion special (airing on Lifetime at 8 p.m. and available to stream the next day) in the same dress. "Different colors," acknowledged Kendall. "Yours was a little bit longer." But bottom line, insisted JoJo, "They looked cute."
And while fans might assume it was the November taping, plus a night-before hang with Maddie Ziegler, Kenzie Ziegler and Nia Sioux that got the squad back together, they've pretty much always been in perfect rhythm.
"I don't think people know that we're friends," noted Kalani. "And there's so many different storylines on the show between our mothers that people just tend to think that we all hate each other, or that we picked sides with different people. But we're actually all super close."
As it turns out, being constantly reminded by dance teacher-slash-reality TV villain Abby Lee Miller just how replaceable you are will do that to a group of girls.
"It's a trauma bond," acknowledged Kalani.
Agreed JoJo, "It really is, whether that be a good trauma or a bad trauma. It doesn't necessarily mean it's a negative thing, but there's just such a familiarity."
And it's not just a Pavlovian response to hearing the word pyramid.
"It's a really strong foundation, and like I was saying yesterday, I could go 10 years without seeing any of them and I'd see them and be like, 'Nothing's changed,'" explained Chloé. "Because when you go through something like that you create such a strong relationship that you just completely understand each other."
Same goes for the stars who never took to the stage or, say, listened to Abby chide them that their legs are about as straight as Elton John. ("Didn't realize what that meant 'til I was older!" joked JoJo.)
Despite a series of downright vicious arguments, the actual dance moms, are "like high school girls," insisted Kendall. "They call each other with everything still. They're like, 'Oh my god, I just got a new car.' They're like, 'Oh my god! Let me see pictures!'"
Basically, everyone emerged a winner from their time on the eight-season series, you know, after the requisite healing and self-work.
"It's a family thing," explained Kalani. "We even talk to each other's mothers. People don't even realize how close we are. So I always think it's funny when people write so many negative things about us and our relationships with each other because we are all so close and everything that what other people say, it doesn't matter, because we've gone through so much together, our moms, us, everything."
Not to mention the dance dads who only received a shred of airtime.
"We have 10, 15 extra moms, extra sisters, even their dads," noted Chloé. "I'm like, 'You're basically like my second dad.' Their brothers are my brothers. It's just a really big, dysfunctional but amazing family."
Joked Kendall, "Emphasis on dysfunction."
And, as Abby once ordered, they've all been having fun since filming the reunion last fall.
Though both Paige and Chloé noted they were hesitant to relive the years of insults and unhealthy competition, "It was actually really therapeutic," said Chloé of rehashing the years she spent as No. 2 to Abby's star student Maddie. "It made me realize I should probably go to therapy."
And, no, they did not save their tears for the pillow.
"I mean, we cried, like, every segment," said Kendall. "There was a lot of tears. But also a lot of laughs."
As for those who chose not to attend, with OGs Maddie, Kenzie and Nia notably absent, "I think of course, we would love to have everybody there," said Kalani, "But everybody makes their own decision. And I'm happy that we chose ourselves that we wanted to be there. And there's nothing wrong either way."
Though they did miss out on one bonding exercise.
Hatching a plan to get matching tattoos while at the E! News studio, the sextet followed through hours later. "I mean, these are my closest friends," acknowledged Chloé. "We're sisters. It's like an extended family."
But while they'll always be a team, they've each been nailing their lives as soloists. Check out how each of the standouts from Abby's Junior Elite competition team have been living off the dance floor.
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, the 2021 West Side Story remake and the 2024 flick My Old Ass.
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 ballas 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 dug a little deeper for her third album, biting my tongue, which dropped in July 2024.
"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 was 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.”
Though the competition took a bow after one year, the Pepperdine University grad is still making moves. Focusing primarily on content creation, she's also been writing her "first fiction fantasy book," she told E! News in 2023 and putting some thought into her next chapter in a yet-unamed city. "What I've learned the past couple of years is that everything works out exactly as it's supposed to do."
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 wrapping up her day job as a UCLA student (she graduated with a degree in American Literature and Culture in June 2024), she was moonlighting in Hollywood, recently dropping her single "IMMA CATCH" and landing on Variety's 2023 Young Hollywood Impact Report.
Next up, "I'm just so excited to focus on my career and my craft," she told E! News in May 2024. "Now I can go off and live my life and experiment and try new things and hopefully direct more and act more and sing more and just perform in general."
Brooke Hyland
Trading in group numbers for group trips, the eldest of the show's OGs led a 2023 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, was 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—who got engaged to account manager Brian Thalman in May 2024—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.
Paige's 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.
The pair marked five years together in July 2024 by signing their first apartment lease, Paige writing on Instagram, "new adventure coming soon."
Kendall Vertes
These days, the James Madison University senior 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 the singer—who dropped her debut EP Guilty Pleasure in July 2024—scores that gig, she told the duo on an August 2023 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," shared the dancer, who announced her engagement to Nathan Goldman in August 2024. "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 in June 2023 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, invites to every it event and a recently released dance-ready single "Oh Boys" and eponymous album, 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 and Super Bowl halftime show, she took to the Grammys stage with Missy Elliott. "Beyond blessed!!!" she wrote of the February 2023 experience.
And after gigs dancing in the 30th anniversary celebration of The Lion King at the Hollywood Bowl and alongside Chloe Bailey at the BET Awards, 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 run-ins with fans when she takes her dance students to competitions.
"It's really cute," Brynn, who remains close to Kenzie, said of one encounter. "They're like, 'Miss Brynn, you're famous?'"