‘Dance Moms’ Is Over but Cathy Nesbitt-Stein and Jill Vertes Are Still Trading Insults
Part of the reason that Dance Moms became such a hit for Lifetime was because the large cast was packed with big personalities. Not only was ALDC teacher and studio owner, Abby Lee Miller, a big personality, but the moms were quite the characters also. One of the biggest characters was, of course, Cathy Nesbitt-Stein who owned Candy Apples Dance Center.
Fans of Dance Moms will recall that Nesbitt-Stein was a part of the show from the very first season. However, her daughter, Vivi-Anne Stein, initially started off as a member of the Abby Lee Dance Company Junior Elite Competition Team. But, after a short trial period, Nesbitt-Stein left the studio and began directly competing against the ALDC.
CADC owner Cathy Nesbitt-Stein was a memorable part of the ‘Dance Moms’ cast
Over time, Cathy became a natural rival for the ALDC. Whenever she popped up on an episode of Dance Moms, there was sure to be laughs as well as drama. The CADC owner had a penchant for really getting under the skin of the cast with her innate ability to hurl a quick insult. And while her biggest target was typically Miller, she also clashed with Jill Vertes a great deal also.
Vertes and her daughter, Kendall Vertes, joined the cast in Season 2. Though the Dance Moms producers forced Jill and Kendall to briefly leave the ALDC for the CADC, Vertes has confessed that she and Nesbitt-Stein never got along. “The producers loved Cathy and they wanted her in the show at any cost,” Jill confessed in a 2020 interview with Entertainment Tonight. “So they shipped me over there you know. I didn’t want to be there and Cathy and I never really cared much for each other so, at the beginning, we had to pretend.”
Jill Vertes thinks her fellow cast member was on the show for the wrong reasons
Continuing on, Jill shared that she felt that Cathy was on Dance Moms for the wrong reasons. “Cathy was tough, she was tough,” Jill admitted. “She didn’t like me because I kind of feel like I saw her for who she was. She was using the system, she just wanted to be on tv and wanted her kid on tv, that’s just my opinion. I think Cathy was there for all the wrong reasons, just to be an idiot and, you know, drive all of us nuts and it worked.”
Of course, Jill wasn’t the only one who had less than favorable things to say about her former castmate. Recently, Cathy did a Q&A on her Instagram stories, and she decided to shade Jill in true Cathy fashion. “Can you spill some of the Dance Moms secrets?” one fan questioned the CADC owner. “Jill’s hairdresser was blind 😳,” Stein quipped.
Nesbitt-Stein reveals why she didn’t return for ‘Dance Moms’ Season 8
Cathy also made sure to mention that Jill was not, technically, a Dance Moms OG, though she likes to claim that title. “How come you didn’t come back for Season 8 of Dance Moms?” another fan questioned. “Btw I love you queen.” Cathy was quick to share that her returning for the final season didn’t make sense. “Thank you,” the dance teacher shared. “I didn’t know those moms,” she penned. “I wouldn’t have made sense. My chemistry was with the OG’s (and Jill😂)” she wrote.
Though a lot of the Dance Moms drama was fabricated by the producers, it’s clear that the dislike that Jill and Cathy had for one another was completely genuine. The show may have gone off the air years ago, but who knows how long these two will be trading insults.
