Sia’s EXPLOITATION of Maddie Ziegler | Deep Dive

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As an autistic person, I really don’t fault Maddie at all. She was so manipulated and groomed by multiple trusted adults. I hope that she is able to unpack how she was treated growing up and is able to become her own happy and healthy person

That's what's so perplexing about Sia's relationship with Maddie. She found fame suffocating and terrifying but she put a child, who she claims to love, in the firing line in her place.

I'm autistic and listen 99% of the autistic community does NOT blame maddie

it's actually baffling how people could SEE the years of psychological abuse that Maddie endured on dance moms, SEE the clearly weird relationship the adults around her built for her and STILL have the AUDACITY to blame her. I hope she can heal and find her place in this world❤

Maddie's career is so far from over. People aren't stupid. It is clear to all of us with common sense that Maddie was just the actor, and as an actor her job was to act the way the director (Sia) told her to. It reflects on Sia's bad judgment, not on Maddie's.

its just so weird how sia basically turned maddie into her own synthetic daughter, like its almost as if she's a doll and a possession that only sia can have

As an autistic person, autism IS a disability for me. "special abilities" denies that in our currect society, I can't do what I need to do to live life normally.

the only way i’ve heard of sia actually protecting maddie is when she stopped maddie from getting on a private plane with harvey weinstein. other than that, sia has put maddie into the spotlight that she herself found to be really damaging. it seems like a lot of celebrities with kids nowadays are keeping their kids’s lives very private because they know how damaging it can be. it seems like sia sees maddie as an extension of herself and wants to live through her rather than how an actual parent-child relationship should be

Everyone was living through her. From Sia, all the way to her mother. She kinda had the life they all probably wanted for themselves, a pretty face, very talented and acclaimed by everyone. The question is: is this what MADDIE wanted? It was always about everyone else BUT her, Abby was living throigh her, Melissa was living through her and then Sia. She had a very weird relationship with every adult she had in her life and this was probably because nobody was ever there to actually protect her as a child. Not only that but it's weird how Sia never wanted fame because she found it oppressing or whatever but she put a 12 year old in such danger.

The fact Sia says “I just keep writing projects for her so that I can keep her safe” when she’s not kept her safe at all, she’s exploited her and made her play controversial roles that she herself wasn’t comfortable with, opening her up to all kinds of criticism. Sia herself has said she’s found fame difficult and terrifying yet has put Maddie in these difficult situations.

I only have one comment about the Elastic Heart video: a lot of people want to portray it as a pedophilic or creepy, as if Shia and Maddie are supposed to be portraying some kind of romance. But the song is actually about Sia and her troubled relationship with her alcoholic father. Shia is supposed to be representing her father and Maddie is her - the "strong wolf". The dance represents the complicated, sad relationship Sia has with her dad - how she tried to help him and he stayed behind. When I watched the video, that fight was what I saw. I'm sad so many people think it was pedophilia :/

Hold up. She hangs out at Sia's house and they "cuddle" and "are like sisters"? Didn't Michael Jackson do the same sort of things and everyone was upset about it?

“fame is the worse thing for a person” so you expose a 12 year old to greater heights of fame🤔

I fact that sia saw fame as a prison but made a child visually take her place is such a huge red flag. She had no problem putting a literal children through the hell she couldn’t even handle herself. Just despicable

As a 34 year old autistic female, I 100% do not blame Maddie for any of this. Sia blatantly abused her trust and took advantage of her.

She got depressed by fame and put a child in the place she is escaping 💀

Personally, I find the Elastic Heart video to be a wonderful piece of performative art. Like it really was powerful. The part I find disturbing was Sia using Maddie as her public stand in at events and shows. That level of codependency on a kid and placing pressure on her instead of yourself is kinda wrong.

I get the strong impression tat Sia sees Maddie as the girl she always wanted to be. It's a serious psychological issue that needs to be dealt with. It is NOT merely 'eccentricity'.

I never understood the hate for Elastic Heart. There were a lot of genuine issues in this relationship, but this wasn't one of them. I think if you see Elastic Heart as sexually suggestive, that says a LOT more about YOU than it does about the video. It's an interpretive dance where the majority of the time, the two are engaged in mock combat. What's sexual about that? To me it comes off as a father and daughter, and the daughter trying to get the father to wake up and break out of his destructive ways to become something better, and how she deals with the trauma he inflicts on her because of his dysfunctional life. So she fights to get them to both change for the better, but in the end, his mind and spirit are too broken to escape, and she has to leave without him.