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Abby Lee Miller Admits She Has ‘Good Hours and Bad Hours’ Amid Cancer Battle (Exclusive)

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Abby Lee Miller attends JoJo Siwa's Sweet 16 Birthday celebration at W Hollywood on April 09, 2019 in Hollywood, California.Amy Sussman/Getty Images

Working her way back. Abby Lee Miller admitted exclusively to Us Weekly that she still struggles with a myriad of health woes nearly one year after her cancer diagnosis.

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“I’m OK. I’m good,” the Dance Moms star, 52, told Us at JoJo Siwa’s Sweet 16 Birthday Celebration on Tuesday, April 9. “Good days and bad days, good hours and bad hours.”

Us reported in April 2018 that the choreographer was diagnosed with non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma. She underwent emergency spinal surgery that month, which interfered with her ability to walk.

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Miller’s recent affliction deterred a previously planned knee operation, for which she is now paying the price. “I go to therapy three days a week and then the fourth day I have somebody come to me, and they are concerned with me walking again because of my knee,” she said. “I needed a knee replacement way before any of this happened. Before prison, before the cancer, before anything. And now it’s kind of hindering me — that same knee injury.”

The reality TV star was released from prison in March 2018 after being sentenced the year prior for bankruptcy fraud.

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Miller’s recent locale has affected her condition too. “I’ve been shooting in Pittsburgh for the last 10 weeks, and it’s very cold. So, like, your joints get stiff,” she explained. “You know, people say, ‘Oh, the weather, the weather.’ I’d be like, ‘What are you talking about? Makes no sense.’ But now it does. … It’s hard to be freezing cold all the time.”

Miller went on to open up about her chances of receiving her current diagnosis. “I thought I would get cancer eventually. My mom and dad both passed away from cancer,” she told Us. “But not now or not this young and not when I was, like, ready to set the world on fire, and then it was just another thing. So I feel like I went to prison twice: once for the government and once at [Cedars-Sinai Medical Center].”

Amid her health battle, the TV personality garnered messages of support from several Dance Moms alums. Others were less warm, though. “There’s kids that I raised, that I helped make a lot of money for. Who I kind of took them out of Pittsburgh and now they live in L.A., and they have a wonderful life because of me and my studio and all the teachers there, and they don’t even know your name anymore,” she said. “They distance themselves.”

JoJo’s Dream Birthday will air on Nickelodeon Saturday, May 18, at 8 p.m. ET.

With reporting by Taylor Ferber

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