Dance Moms star Abby Lee Miller is currently in remission, but during her cancer battle, things were looking bleak. “I wanted to die,” she admitted during the new Lifetime documentary, Dance Moms: The Return of Abby. The choreographer is back on television after a painful year that included a prison sentence, emergency surgery and a battle to walk again.
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Photo credit: INSTARImages
Abby, 52, had
emergency surgery in April 2018, shortly after the end of her prison sentence.
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Photo credit: INSTARImages
She pleaded guilty to felony bankruptcy fraud and was sentenced to one year and a day in prison in 2017. However, she was released early.
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Photo credit: INSTARImages
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Photo credit: INSTARImages
She thought that, after surgery, she would get her life back, but then she learned she needed to go through chemo and that she might never walk again.
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Photo credit: INSTARImages
“I'm not going to keep doing the cancer treatment if I can't walk,” she said.
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Photo credit: INSTARImages
“And if I lose dance, there is no point in being here. I felt like I lost my purpose and I needed to find it,” she explained about wanting to die.
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But soon, she was back in the studio, putting dancers through their paces in auditions.
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“I have had a miserable year. It almost killed me,” she said. “I will teach again. I will create a winning team again and I hope and pray that I will walk again.”
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“I am definitely a fighter and this is the fight of my life,” Abby said, before finding out she’s in remission.
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“I'm proud. I'm grateful that I survived this year and I am ready to move on, get back in the studio, do what I love to do,” she explained.
Abby, 52, had
emergency surgery in April 2018, shortly after the end of her prison sentence.
Photo credit: INSTARImages
She pleaded guilty to felony bankruptcy fraud and was sentenced to one year and a day in prison in 2017. However, she was released early.
Photo credit: INSTARImages
Photo credit: INSTARImages
She thought that, after surgery, she would get her life back, but then she learned she needed to go through chemo and that she might never walk again.
Photo credit: INSTARImages
“I'm not going to keep doing the cancer treatment if I can't walk,” she said.
Photo credit: INSTARImages
“And if I lose dance, there is no point in being here. I felt like I lost my purpose and I needed to find it,” she explained about wanting to die.
Photo credit: INSTARImages
But soon, she was back in the studio, putting dancers through their paces in auditions.
“I have had a miserable year. It almost killed me,” she said. “I will teach again. I will create a winning team again and I hope and pray that I will walk again.”
“I am definitely a fighter and this is the fight of my life,” Abby said, before finding out she’s in remission.
“I'm proud. I'm grateful that I survived this year and I am ready to move on, get back in the studio, do what I love to do,” she explained.