With one being among the best pop singers in the world and the other being one of the best dancers we have seen, Maddie Ziegler and Sia have become some of the most powerful duos in the pop world. What they have done with music videos is beyond what one can explain, but more than that, they have come to share a friendship that although seemed rather weird at first, has sustained and has come to generate a lot of interest. Here’s how it all happened.
Maddie Ziegler and Sia
Sometime in 2011, 8-year old Maddie Ziegler began appearing in Lifetime’s and it soon became obvious that she was a star just waiting for the right time to light up the skies. By 2014, the skies came for her when Australian singer Sia, contacted her on Twitter asking her if she was interested in dancing in the video for her single. She also informed the young dancer’s mother, Melissa Ziegler, that her people are trying to reach her.
This was the contract that gave birth to Maddie Ziegler and Sia’s friendship as Maddie took the offer and appeared for the first time in the famous white wig in Chandelier. The only person to appear in the video which has gained close to 2 billion views on YouTube was Ziegler while the Australian singer-songwriter directed it together with Daniel Askill.
At the 57th Annual Grammy Awards, Chandelier was nominated as the best music video but lost to Pharrell Williams’ Happy. It also got the MTV Video Music Award for Video of the Year nomination and it won the best choreography at the 2014 MTV Video Music Awards and best video at the ARIA Music Awards of 2014.
Everything You Need To Know About Their Friendship
Even though it is one’s music and the other’s dance that brought Maddie Ziegler and Sia together, their bond has developed and gone beyond their arts. They have worked on more songs together, including a video for Elastic Heart, and for Big Girls Cry, always appearing in the white wig. It became clear that these two were going to stick together for a long time.
Beyond just their collaborations, Maddie Ziegler became some form of the rebirth or another face of Sia who has continued to be just the voice while the young singer becomes the face. At the 2015 Grammy’s the two appeared together wearing their white wigs with Sia’s face covered to the mouth while Maddie left her’s open. In 2016, Maddie shared a picture of two necklaces that she described as her two favorite necklaces. While the first necklace carried the names of both Maddie and Sia, the second simply said “Sisters”. In the same year, Maddie Ziegler and Sia went on Sia’s North American tour together and it was described as very successful with a lot of energy put into it.
For her 2017 Everyday Is Christmas album cover, Sia had Maddie Ziegler as the cover. The young dancer would later reveal that she had spent the year with the singer who has become her second mom even more than with her real mom. Their friendship continued to 2018 when for her 18th birthday, Sia gifted Maddie a Car.
The Criticisms
And, of course, there were the criticisms that followed the working relationship between Maddie Ziegler and Sia. This mostly came from those who believe that while the singer who was born in 1975 has kept herself away from the limelight, she has been nudging the young dancer to the spotlight.
The main issue for many is that Sia had always either stayed off the scene entirely or she had always kept herself covered while Ziegler, always dressed in the same way as the singer would leave her face open. The criticism is that she is pushing herself to the spotlight that she herself is refusing to be in.
More so, in an article written by Bonnie Malkin and published by, Sia Furler was accused of hiding while exposing the child, standing still while the child was moving, and offering up the face and body of Maddie while she remained covered.
In her response, the singer said the article had brought up the question she had always asked herself, however, she highlighted that Madison was already famous when the two met, although she further made her more famous. Sia said all she wanted for Maddie whom she has always protected is to empower the teenager.
