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Sia Says She Kept Maddie Ziegler Away from Harvey Weinstein

She stopped the teen from getting on a plane with the convicted rapist.
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By Lester Cohen/Getty Images

Sia isn't just Maddie Ziegler's number one employer, she's also her guardian angel.

In an interview with the Zach Sang Show, the pop star said, “I just love her so much...As soon as I met Maddie I felt this extreme desire to protect her, and I think it was part of my own healing, I felt this 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.” The pair first started working together when Ziegler was just 11-years-old and made her breakout performance in the pop star's “Chandelier” music video.

It's a good thing Sia has that motherly instinct as she revealed she actually may have saved the teen from Harvey Weinstein's clutches. The singer told Sang, “You know I kept her off a plane that Harvey Weinstein tried to get her on. I know that there've been times that my insight has really made a difference, has kept her safe. Yeah, that was really disgusting.” She added, “When he invited her, that's when I called, I told [her mom] Melissa, I had to. I just said, ‘Please don't, do not do that, do not do that, do not do that.’”

In March, Weinstein was sentenced to 23 years in prison after being convicted of first-degree criminal sexual assault and third-degree rape. Once one of the most powerful figures in Hollywood, the disgraced producer's decades of shocking, predatory behavior were exposed amidst the #MeToo movement of 2017. On Wednesday, a class-action suit brought by Weinstein's victims over allegations of sexual harassment, sexual abuse, and rape reached an $18 million settlement.

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