Maddie Ziegler

Madison Nicole Ziegler (; born September 30, 2002) is an American actress and dancer. She appeared in Lifetime's reality show Dance Moms, from 2011 (at age 8) until 2016, and starred in a series of music videos by Sia, beginning with "Chandelier" and "Elastic Heart", which have in total attracted more than 6 billion views on YouTube. Ziegler has appeared in films, television shows, concerts, advertisements and on magazine covers. Ziegler was a judge on the 2016 season of So You Think You Can Dance: The Next Generation, toured with Sia in North America and Australia in 2016 and 2017 and has given dance tours with her sister, Mackenzie. Her 2017 memoir, The Maddie Diaries, was a New York Times Best Seller. Her film roles include Camille Le Haut in the animated film Ballerina (2016), Christina Sickleman in The Book of Henry (2017), the title role in Music (2021), Mia in the high school drama The Fallout (2021), Velma in Steven Spielberg's 2021 West Side Story and Lindy in Fitting In (2023). Ziegler was included by Time magazine on its list of the "30 most influential teens" in each year from 2015 to 2017. She was included in the 2023 Forbes 30 Under 30 list in the Hollywood & Entertainment category. Her social media presence includes an Instagram account with more than 13 million followers. Early life and education Ziegler was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, to Melissa Ziegler-Gisoni and Kurt Ziegler, who owned a mortgage company. She is of Polish, German and Italian descent. Her parents divorced when she was six years old, and her mother married Greg Gisoni in 2013. Ziegler began taking ballet lessons at the age of two and joined the Abby Lee Dance Company at age four, where she trained in tap, ballet, lyrical, contemporary, acro and jazz. Ziegler has a younger sister, Mackenzie, a singer and dancer who appeared with her on Dance Moms, two older half-brothers from her father's previous marriage, and two older step-siblings from the previous marriage of her stepfather, Greg Gisoni, a vice president at Westinghouse Electric Company.