Abby Lee Miller is suing Cedars-Sinai Marina Del Rey Hospital in a bombshell lawsuit that’s making waves in both the medical and entertainment worlds.
The Dance Moms alum has officially filed a complaint claiming doctors left a catheter inside her body during spinal surgery in 2020, and didn’t discover it for four years. The news broke on June 3, with court documents filed in Los Angeles County Superior Court alleging medical negligence, professional negligence, and medical battery. At 59, Miller says she’s endured years of abdominal pain, suffering in silence while her concerns were repeatedly dismissed.
According to the lawsuit, Miller began experiencing unexplained pain following the 2020 surgery that saved her life after a devastating Burkitt lymphoma diagnosis. She claims she reported this pain to multiple physicians over the years, including the same two who performed the original procedure. But it wasn’t until June 2024 that one doctor finally ordered a CT scan, only to discover the cause of her misery: a bright blue catheter left inside her abdomen from that initial surgery. That same day, she underwent an emergency procedure to remove the foreign object.
The legal docs describe the catheter as a “retained surgical object,” which medical experts estimate occurs in about 1 in every 5,500 surgeries. Miller is seeking $1.4 million in damages and claims her chronic complaints were not just ignored but essentially written off by those she trusted most. Her attorney, Nadine Lewis, slammed the hospital’s negligence, saying Miller “suffered for years” and was repeatedly dismissed, even as she struggled with daily pain as a paraplegic and cancer survivor.
Miller’s health issues began in 2018 when she was initially misdiagnosed with a spinal infection. It was later confirmed to be Burkitt lymphoma, a rare and aggressive type of non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma. At the time, her orthopedic spine surgeon, Dr. Hooman M. Melamed, who is now one of the defendants named in her lawsuit, publicly discussed her treatment plan, noting that surgery, chemo, or radiation were likely. He has since declined to comment on the latest legal action.
Cedars-Sinai issued a brief statement but didn’t address Miller directly, citing patient privacy laws. “Cedars-Sinai cannot comment on pending legal matters,” the statement read. “The care and safety of our patients, staff, and visitors are always Cedars-Sinai’s top priorities.” But behind that PR polish, Miller’s accusations have cracked open deeper questions about how seriously hospitals take postoperative complications, especially in patients with complex histories.
In her statement through her lawyer, Miller described being “systematically dismissed” despite being in obvious discomfort. “As a paraplegic woman with a life sentence in a wheelchair, Abby lives with daily pain in the aftermath of her Burkitt lymphoma diagnosis,” Lewis stated. “Four years post-surgery, Abby discovered her surgeons had left a bright blue catheter inside her abdomen.”
This legal drama is just the latest chapter in Miller’s turbulent public life. Beyond her health battles, she famously served over a year in federal prison after being convicted of bankruptcy fraud in 2017. That sentence included a $40,000 fine and an order to pay back $120,000, along with mandatory supervised release. And yet, despite her ups and downs, Miller continued her high-profile role on Dance Moms from 2011 to 2019 and remained the face of her Pittsburgh-based studio, Reign Dance Productions.
Now, as she takes on one of the nation’s top hospitals in court, Abby Lee Miller isn’t just fighting for compensation, she’s demanding accountability in this hospital lawsuit. Whether her case leads to change in how post-op care is handled remains to be seen, but one thing’s for sure: she’s not staying silent anymore.
Jamie Wells has a knack for getting the inside scoop on Hollywood’s biggest stars and up-and-coming talent. With a sharp eye for industry trends and an ear for viral moments, Jamie covers everything from red-carpet events to behind-the-scenes drama in movies, TV, and celebrity culture.
