Abby Lee Miller Thought She Would ‘Get Cancer Eventually’ But ‘Not This Young’ — ‘I Feel Like I Went to Prison Twice’

She’s struggling. Abby Lee Miller — who was recently diagnosed with cancer — said she has, “Good days and bad days, good hours and bad hours,” when she spoke with Us Weekly about her health on Tuesday, April 9. “I’m OK. I’m good,” the 52-year-old told the outlet at JoJo Siwa’s Sweet 16 Birthday Celebration. The Dance Moms star added, “I thought I would get cancer eventually. My mom and dad both passed away from cancer. 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].”

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The choreographer was previously diagnosed with non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, Us Weekly reported in April 2018. She then underwent emergency spinal surgery that interfered with her ability to walk. Her health issues meant she couldn’t go through with a knee surgery she needed, and she told Us on April 9, “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. 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.”

Abby also told the outlet, “I’ve been shooting in Pittsburgh for the last 10 weeks, and it’s very cold. So, like, your joints get stiff. 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.” Poor thing!

On May 9, 2017, Abby was sentenced to one year and one day in federal prison, followed by two years of supervised release, for her bankruptcy fraud case, People reported. She weathered that storm, only to have to fight a new battle that apparently seems just as tough to face. But JoJo said of her Abby Lee Dance Company mentor on July 19, “she’s a fighter, she’s got this.”