'Dance Moms' Star Kenzie Ziegler Loves That She Can Embrace Her 'Real, Authentic' Self On TikTok
Growing up in the spotlight, Dance Moms star Kenzie Ziegler received "a lot of hate" from her peers.
The pressure to perfect her craft only added to her woes, but the dancer reveals that posting on TikTok has actually helped her embrace the fact that nobody's perfect.
Talking to her sister Maddie for Elite Daily's BFF issue, the girls dished on their love for the app — though they each insisted the other is the "best TikTokker."
"You do the best dances, but also, like you said, you’ll learn a dance and film it once. You don’t even watch it back; you just post it. You have such a carefree mentality about it, like, 'This is me, whether you like it or not,'" Maddie noted. "It’s so amazing."
"I like the app because you can be very real," Kenize responded. "On Instagram, everyone has to look perfect, and we worry about what we post. But on TikTok, you can post a video with no makeup, straight out of bed, or doing the craziest, stupid stuff, and everyone will think it’s funny or be like, 'Oh, I love how authentic you are.'"
"It’s more of a drama-free zone," she noted. "The other day, you and I filmed that TikTok of us just shimmying in a car, and it was just fun and everyone loved it."
The siblings also made it clear that whether they do solo videos or duets, they are in no way competing with each other.
"Before you joined, when we would learn dances together on my account, the comments would be like, 'Maddie’s better.' And I was like, 'OK, we know,'" recalled Kenzie. "I stopped posting with you because I was like, 'This is just so stressful and annoying.'"
Eventually, she decided to start sharing duets again, but the comments became "way worse."
The criticism prompted Kenzie to make a statement to their millions of viewers.
"I posted a video and said, 'Hey, I know you all think it’s cool to compare us, but I’ve been compared to her my whole life. So if you’re going to comment, just comment something positive.'"
Her message was received.
Now it’s more like, 'They dance so well together. They look like they’re having so much fun,'" Kenzie explained. "I think people understand now that we don’t do it to compete."
