
Former "Dance Moms" reality star Abby Lee Miller arrives at the Joseph F. Weis Jr. U. S. Courthouse in Pittsburgh for her sentencing on federal bankruptcy fraud charges, Monday, May 8, 2017. (Pittsburgh Post-Gazette via AP)
Abby Lee Miller said she “wasn’t ever trying to hurt anyone” after she was sentenced to one year and a day in prison for what she called “a mistake.”
The former “Dance Moms” star spoke to “Good Morning America” following her sentencing, which determined she will go to prison for bankruptcy fraud and for taking $120,000 worth of Australian currency into the country without reporting it.
A federal judge in Pittsburgh also ordered Miller on Tuesday to pay a $40,000 fine and spend two years on probation following her release. Miller pleaded guilty in both cases last year.
Prosecutors said she tried to cheat her creditors by hiding $775,000 worth of income and deserved prison.
“No. Not intentionally no,” she said of that claim when speaking with “GMA.”
“A year and a day; it sounds like a movie title,” she reflected.
She’s expected to serve about 10 months.
“I’m just going to pretend that I am shooting a movie, and we’re on set, and I am there for 10 months, and that’s the way it’s gonna be,” she said.
Miller said she will spend her time behind bars “reading and I want to learn how to speak Spanish, and I am already working on a new book.”
She said she hopes “to be a smarter businesswoman and also to worry about myself.”
The "Dance Moms" star was known for her brash behavior and pursuit of perfectionism from her dance students. The Lifetime show follows a class of Miller's elite students and the perilous relationship she has with the girls' mothers. Critics of "Dance Moms" accuse Miller of being emotionally abusive toward the girls, and many episodes show her students dissolving into tears after a harsh critique.
“I have spent so much time and so much energy making other people’s children stars. I didn’t have any children of my own. These were my kids and I raised them like they were my kids,” she said before she broke down in tears.
Immediately after her sentencing she told reporters outside the court, “I feel relieved. I feel peaceful.”
The Associated Press contributed to this report.