Abby Lee Miller

Miller grew up around dance in Penn Hills, Pennsylvania, a Pittsburgh suburb, studying under her mother's direction at the Maryen Lorrain Dance Studio. In 1980, Miller formed the Abby Lee Dance Company, a dance team at her mother's studio. Miller eventually took over the studio in 1995, and renamed it Reign Dance Productions. Miller opened a Los Angeles location in 2015. It was closed and sold in 2017 in light of Miller's prison sentence. Miller has since relocated her LA studio to a much smaller space, which includes a single dance room and a merchandise shop. In December 2022, it was announced that Miller's Pittsburgh studio had been permanently closed. It was subsequently sold and repurposed into a bus lot and daycare.

Miller became certified by Dance Masters of America (DMA) and became a member of Dance Masters of Pennsylvania Chapter #10 in 1986. Her membership was terminated in February 2012, with DMA saying Miller's reality-TV show Dance Moms was "a total misrepresentation of our dance educators and their students and is detrimental to the dance profession".

In 2011, Miller began appearing in the Lifetime reality television show Dance Moms. Miller appeared on the show for eight seasons through September 2019. Dance Moms follows the training and careers of children in dance and show business under the tutelage of Abby Lee Miller as well as the relationships between Miller, the dancers, and their often bickering mothers.

Three spin-offs of Dance Moms are Abby's Ultimate Dance Competition, which ran for two seasons and 22 episodes; Dance Moms: Miami; and Dance Moms: Abby's Studio Rescue. The latter ran for only seven episodes. Miller has also been a guest judge on Dancing with the Stars. In 2014, Miller published a book, Everything I Learned about Life, I Learned in Dance Class.

In 2015, Miller opened a new studio set up in Los Angeles called ALDC LA. In March 2017, Miller announced she had quit the series. In July 2018, Miller announced her return for season 8 of Dance Moms. Dance Moms: Resurrection premiered June 4, 2019, on Lifetime.

In 2016, Miller appeared on The Eric Andre Show's season 4 premiere.

Miller announced on Instagram on May 4, 2020, that she will be leaving Dance Moms and Lifetime after nine years.