Singer Sia opened up about her relationship with Maddie Ziegler, sharing in a recent interview that she once protected the dancer from disgraced film executive Harvey Weinstein.
In discussion with Zach Sang on his eponymous radio show, the 44-year-old talked about how she loves Ziegler, who starred in her 2014 video for “Chandelier,” as “a mother” and acts sort of like her “bodyguard.”
“As soon as I met Maddie, I felt this extreme desire to protect her and I think that it was part of my own healing,” said Sia in the interview. “I felt just extreme compulsion to protect her and yet the irony is that I didn’t want to be famous and I threw this child into the spotlight and she would say to me, ‘Don’t be silly, I was already famous and I wanted to be famous.’ And I say, ‘And you know it can stop at any time right? If you want it to stop, I can make it stop. You can just go back to being a normal person again.’”
Ziegler insisted that she loves performing, dancing and acting, so Sia says she thought “a good way I can keep her safe is just keep making projects for her and therefore most of the time we’re working together.” The pair will be working together on Sia’s upcoming musical film, titled “Music.”
As for Weinstein, Sia explained that she would often weigh in on opportunities offered to Ziegler to help the dancer and her mother decide which projects would be best for her career.
“I kept her off a plane that Harvey Weinstein tried to get her on,” Sia said of the mogul who is currently serving a 23-year prison sentence for committing a “criminal sexual act” and third-degree rape. “I know that there’s been times when my insight has really made a difference … That was really disgusting.”
Sia explained that when Weinstein invited Ziegler on the plane, she told Ziegler’s mother, Melissa: “I just said, ‘Please don’t, do not do that, do not do that, do not do that.’”
The singer went on to say that she knows there have been “times where my insight has really made a difference, like has kept her safe.”
HuffPost has reached out to representatives for Ziegler for comment.
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