Maddie Ziegler

Maddie Ziegler Bio

Maddie Ziegler, born Madison Nicole Ziegler on September 30, 2002, is an American actress and dancer who first captured global attention as a child performer on the Lifetime reality series Dance Moms. Over the following decade she built a career that spans television, feature films, concert tours, music videos, modeling campaigns, and publishing. She is widely recognized for her long-running creative partnership with the singer Sia, whose music videos she has helped shape into some of the most-viewed visual works of the modern era.

Beyond dance, Ziegler has expanded into acting with roles in independent and major studio films, voice work in animation, and appearances on magazine covers and fashion campaigns. She is also an author, with a New York Times best-selling memoir and a trilogy of novels for young readers to her name. Her combination of technical skill, screen presence, and digital reach has placed her among the most recognizable performers of her generation.

Early Life and Background

Madison Nicole Ziegler was born on September 30, 2002, in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, to Melissa Ziegler-Gisoni and Kurt Ziegler. Her parents owned a mortgage company, and Ziegler is of Polish, German, and Italian descent. Her parents divorced in 2011, after which her mother married Greg Gisoni in 2013. Through her family she has two older half-brothers from her father’s previous marriage and two older step-siblings from her stepfather’s previous marriage.

Ziegler began taking ballet lessons at the age of two and joined the Abby Lee Dance Company at age four, where she trained across tap, ballet, lyrical, contemporary, acro, and jazz. She also has a younger sister, Mackenzie Ziegler, a singer and dancer who appeared alongside her on Dance Moms and has since become a performer in her own right.

Ziegler grew up in Murrysville, near Pittsburgh, and attended Sloan Elementary School until 2013, when she left to be homeschooled so she could pursue professional opportunities. As a teenager she began to work and spend most of her time in Los Angeles while still finishing her education. Her early years were shaped by intensive dance training, competitive success, and the steady presence of family support.

Path to Celebrity

Ziegler’s professional start came in 2010 when, as part of the Abby Lee Dance Company, she performed on the Paula Abdul reality program Live to Dance. The following year, at the age of eight, she and her mother appeared on the first season of Lifetime’s Dance Moms, a reality series built around the young dancers of Abby Lee Miller’s elite competition team and their families. Across six seasons Ziegler emerged as the program’s most prominent performer, training and competing while sharing the screen with her mother and sister.

By 2013 she was making guest appearances on the Dance Moms spin-off Abby’s Ultimate Dance Competition, and her competitive résumé had grown to include numerous titles at regional, state, and national dance competitions, including the 2014 Dancers Choice Award for Favorite Dancer 17 & Under. In 2012 she landed her first professional acting job, portraying Young Deb on an episode of the Lifetime series Drop Dead Diva, signaling her gradual shift from reality television into scripted work.

Her discovery by the singer Sia, who found Ziegler through Dance Moms, marked a turning point. In 2014 she starred in Sia’s music video for “Chandelier,” which won the ARIA Music Award for Best Video, took the Grammy Award for Best Music Video nomination, and earned the MTV Video Music Award for Best Choreography. The video has since drawn more than 2.5 billion views on YouTube, and it launched a creative partnership that would define the next phase of Ziegler’s career.

Maddie Ziegler Career

Early Career (2010–2014)

Ziegler’s earliest years in the entertainment industry were anchored by competitive dance and reality television. From 2010 onward she competed with the Abby Lee Dance Company, building a record of titles that included regional, state, and national championships. Her casting on Dance Moms in 2011 gave the wider public a window into her technique, range, and discipline as a young dancer.

She supplemented her dance work with early acting appearances, including a guest turn on the Lifetime series Drop Dead Diva in 2012 and guest spots on HitStreak Summer in 2014. Her growing reputation caught the attention of Sia, and in 2014 she starred in the music video for “Chandelier,” a project that became her first major global hit and the foundation for a long collaboration with the singer.

Breakthrough (2015–2021)

In 2015, Ziegler starred with Shia LaBeouf in Sia’s “Elastic Heart,” a video that has since passed one billion views on YouTube. She rounded out a trilogy of videos tied to Sia’s album 1000 Forms of Fear with “Big Girls Cry” later that year. She also performed alongside Sia on television shows including The Ellen DeGeneres Show, Dancing with the Stars, Jimmy Kimmel Live!, and Saturday Night Live, and joined Sia and Kristen Wiig on stage at the 2015 Grammy Awards for “Chandelier.” In 2016 the two added “Cheap Thrills” and “The Greatest” to their video catalog, and Ziegler appeared as a judge on So You Think You Can Dance: The Next Generation.

Her film career advanced in 2016 with voice work as Camille in the animated film Ballerina, released in the United States in 2017 as Leap!. She then played Christina Sickleman in The Book of Henry (2017), earning praise from director Colin Trevorrow for her ability to dial in complex emotion on set. Her memoir, The Maddie Diaries, was published in 2017 and became a New York Times Best Seller.

In 2021, Ziegler starred in the title role of Music, a musical written and directed by Sia, followed by the high school drama The Fallout, which premiered at South by Southwest and won the Grand Jury Prize in the Narrative Feature Film Competition. She also played Velma in Steven Spielberg’s West Side Story, completing a remarkably prolific year that drew wide critical notice and positioned her as a serious film actress.

Notable Works and Milestones

Ziegler’s signature works include the Sia videos “Chandelier,” “Elastic Heart,” “Big Girls Cry,” “Cheap Thrills,” and “The Greatest,” along with her roles in The Book of Henry, Leap!, Music, The Fallout, West Side Story, Fitting In (2023), and My Old Ass (2024). Her YouTube presence alone exceeds six billion views across Sia’s videos featuring her, and she has performed on the Nostalgic for the Present Tour, at the Hollywood Bowl, at Coachella, at the iHeartRadio Music Festival, and at the Fuji Rock Festival in Japan.

Maddie Ziegler Award Nominations

Maddie Ziegler has earned nominations from major awards bodies across music, dance, and film. The “Chandelier” video received nominations at the 2014 MTV Video Music Awards for Video of the Year and Best Choreography, winning the latter, and was nominated for the Grammy Award for Best Music Video in 2015. In film, her performance in the title role of Music (2021) brought her the 2021 Golden Raspberry Award for Worst Supporting Actress, a recognition widely discussed in coverage of the film.

Maddie Ziegler Awards Won

Across her career Ziegler has collected honors recognizing her work as a dancer, performer, and public figure. The “Chandelier” video won the ARIA Music Award for Best Video and the MTV Video Music Award for Best Choreography. She earned a 2016 People’s Choice Award for Choice Dancer, a 2016 Teen Choice Award for Choice Dancer, and a 2017 Teen Choice Award for Choice Dancer. In 2017 she also won a Shorty Award in one category and an audience honor in another. She was named to Time magazine’s list of the 30 most influential teens each year from 2015 to 2017, and was included in the 2023 Forbes 30 Under 30 list in the Hollywood & Entertainment category.

Maddie Ziegler Family

Maddie Ziegler was born to Melissa Ziegler-Gisoni and Kurt Ziegler, who owned a mortgage company during her early years. Her parents divorced in 2011, and her mother later married Greg Gisoni in 2013. Through her father she has two older half-brothers, and through her stepfather she gained two older step-siblings. Her younger sister, Mackenzie Ziegler, is a singer and dancer who appeared with her on Dance Moms and has pursued her own entertainment career, including fashion and music projects.

Personal Life

From early 2017 to mid-2018, Ziegler dated Australian Jack Kelly, the son of former New York Yankees infielder Pat Kelly. From 2019 to early 2023 she was in a relationship with singer-songwriter Eddie Benjamin. As a teenager she transitioned from homeschooling in Pennsylvania to spending most of her working time in Los Angeles while maintaining close ties to her family, who continue to appear alongside her in public projects and charitable campaigns.