Dance Moms star Abby Lee Miller has called out an airline after what she claims was an “awful” experience involving her wheelchair.
Miller, 61, claims American Airlines returned her wheelchair “in pieces”, leaving her without a way to get home.
Abby Lee Miller has been a wheelchair user since 2018. Getty
“American Airlines, do better,” she told Page Six.
“When you bring somebody’s chair up at 2am in pieces, and lay it there, how did they think I was even going to get home?” she continued.
“I had to go home with a push chair. The guys who handle the luggage downstairs had to push me up into a van,” she said.
She called the experience “absolutely awful”.
nine.com.au has contacted American Airlines for comment.
Miller had previously called out the airline in 2019, alleging she fell out of her wheelchair at Pittsburgh International Airport during a transfer between chairs.
“Help! ‘I’ve fallen and I can’t get up’ isn’t that the truth?” Miller captioned an Instagram photo of herself on the ground.
“I shouldn’t have had to ask for someone to call the paramedics and maybe the @americanair gate manager should’ve at the very least asked if I was OK?” she continued.
Miller has been a wheelchair user since 2018 after being diagnosed with Burkitt lymphoma, an aggressive form of non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma.
Miller posted after falling out of her chair at an airport in 2019. Instagram/@therealabbylee
She had an emergency spinal operation to address a tumour and was left temporarily paralysed from the neck down.
While she is cancer-free and regained her ability to walk short distances with aids, Miller relies on a wheelchair for long-term mobility.
In 2023, she told Entertainment Tonight the public doesn’t see the amount of work it takes to get her prepared for a day.
“The getting out of bed and all your bathroom things and stuff that people don’t like to really talk about,” she said of the hardest tasks.
“When they see me out and I’m in make-up, my hair’s done, I’m moving, I’m grooving, they’re like, ‘She’s great. She’s fine.’ They don’t really see what happens before that.”
Dance Moms star Abby Lee Miller has been a wheelchair user since 2018. Instagram/@therealabbylee
Miller first rose to fame when Dance Moms premiered in 2011.
The hit reality show followed the drama-filled and dazzling world of competitive dance led by her, a hard-line dance instructor, and her rising stars.
Throughout the series, the girls and their doting mothers travelled week after week to show-stopping dance competitions.
The series launched the careers of JoJo Siwa, Maddie and Kenzie Ziegler and more.