People
Toronto Through the Eyes of Leah Miller
I met Leah Miller at what her publicist said would be a "fun, promo event" for the new season of Miller's show, So You Think You Can Dance Canada. And if a "fun promo event" is a couple of girls handing out squished up SYTYCD beach balls, a few hip hop and break dancers occasionally busting a move in an eight by six foot taped-off rectangle, and the show's hosts milling around smiling and signing autographs - then, yeah, super fun.
After leaving for L.A. to pursue her star-studded dreams Miller returned to Toronto because she missed her family, landing a job at Much Music and not looking back. The newlywed married musician Dallas Green of Alexisonfire last year and together the couple probably gets more party invites in a month than most of us get all year. So when Miller punches out every night, where does she go? Home of course, to bake and watch TV.
When you think of Toronto, what three words come to mind?
Oh my gosh. I guess family. Good food. And my home.
You lived in L.A. for a little while when you were just starting out and then you came back - how do the two cities compare?
Oh my gosh. Just Canada in general is so much better than the States. Don't get me wrong I love traveling there but I miss my family. And I think Canadians are much nicer. Yeah.
And what is it that you love about Toronto in particular?
I love that I can work in downtown Toronto, I'm here Monday to Friday, and I love that I can just drive 20 minutes to north Toronto and that's where I live, that's my home. And it's a nice quiet neighborhood and there's grass and families, you know.
Is there anything that pisses you off about Toronto?
Oh my God traffic! Are you kidding? Like, I find, I just hate traffic. I get so frustrated. I get road rage when I'm in the car. And just bad drivers. You have to be a very defensive driver, I find, to drive in the city.
What kind of car do you drive?
I drive a truck.
OK well at least you've got some protection.
Yeah, It's like a mid-sized truck, so it's not too bad.
Yeah, SUV?
Yeah. Yeah.
What's your favourite thing about your neighbourhood?
It's quiet and nice and there are wonderful families that I live beside. I love having a nice backyard that I can sit in, but I love also being able to walk places, walk to the movies, or to a magazine store, or walk and get my groceries. I like that. It's relaxing.
If you had to pick one restaurant in the city that's your favourite?
God, it's really hard to pick just one because I love food and I eat out a lot. But there's this really great Thai place that I love called Sorn Thai.
What do you do in the city after dark?
Sit at my house. Nothing. I don't go out. If there's a good movie I'm always at the movie theatre, so I go to the movies a lot. That's about it.
Is there anywhere in the city that you go if you want to be inspired?
Nature. Like whether it's Sherwood Park, wherever I can go and just be on hiking trails and not have to see cars or buildings, that's what I like to do.
Do you ever go outside of the city, like into the GTA?
My husband is from St. Catherines St. Catharines and that's where his family lives, so we go to St. Catharines a lot or Niagara-on-the-Lake is beautiful... but that's pretty much as far as I go.
If you could tell City Hall to change one thing right now, what would it be?
Well... I would have said garbage like a week ago, that was a bit of a headache... I can't really think of anything... Probably my list is too long that I can't cut it down to one.
What about shopping?
I like Aritzia, that's a store that I got to quite often. I love Bloor Street. I like home stores too - there's like Williams-Sonoma. I like kitchen stores and I like baking and stuff like that...
Your husband is a musician. Do you listen to a lot of Toronto bands?
I listen to a lot of Canadian bands. I know a lot about music from working at Much Music and always wanting to know what's going on. He introduces me to a lot of artists that I would never know about from the States and all over the world which is really, really nice.
A Canadian that I'll always love is Feist. I know she's like super popular right now, but she's just insanely amazing and I love her voice and I love listening to her CD. Lots of Canadian bands that are great. I love Arcade Fire, you could list a billion Canadian bands that are amazing. 
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Don't blame the author for the subject's insipid answers. But does anyone proofread these things? Come on, your vs. you're shouldn't be an issue.
Good to know Torontonians still don't know how to spell St. Catharines.
Yeah, like, seriously!
like like like like omg so cool.
She can't be that dumb...she's doing quite well for herself.
It's hard to associate success with intelligence in the entertainment industry.
You can't tell me that thought didn't cross your mind at least a dozen times while reading this short interview.
If you saw her on Much you know this is basically her, which is fine, except you have to be 16 or younger to not go insane listening to her.
Sorry to be a hater, but this should have been stamped 'unpublishable'.
obviously the interviewer didn't like her too much or he could have chosen to leave those bits of speech out!
Well, like...you guys have a point, yeah.
I think I lost IQ points reading this.
I believe you meant to say "Oh my gosh!".
Is this a joke? If not, then that was incredibly painful to read. But I did anyway. I am, by all means, not a fan of Leah Miller, but I wonder if the interviewer had something to do with making her look awfully moronic.
Like, oh my god ... grass?!?!
How is she even worth writing about?? The comments revived me to real life.
What an idiot -- my opinion of this blog may have just dropped a bit.
"Sorry to be a hater, but this should have been stamped 'unpublishable'."
Agreed; even if it was only to let her save face. That was a painful read.
As the author of this regular column I made the editorial decision to print the subject's answers verbatim, only cutting sentences (evidenced by ...) or entire questions if things get too long.
My intention with the column is to try to show something of the subject's character and their insights into city life. I choose a broad cross section of well-known Torontonians to profile.
I stopped watching MuchMusic after Ed was let go!......boourns, MM!..BOOURNS!
She is a bimbo that introduces talent and recites phone numbers. All she has to do is nicely fill out a dress and heels, and smile a lot. So why is anyone expecting any insight or intelligence from an interview? If she was smart(er) she could be a weather bimbo, but the SYTYCD gig probably pays much better.
Personally, I think Cat Deeley is much better looking and personable.
Yep, pretty darn dumb. ugh.
I just know that I've been interviewed before and I just wouldn't call anybody a dumb bitch based on an relatively loose interview. My stance is that based on what she does, she's an easy target, it'd be difficult to do that job and always speak with a strombo-like intelligence, it's a different sort of job, and I'd just sort of back off the harsh criticism, it's just bad taste in my opinion. But whatever.
I think Leah has proven time and time again that she isn't so bright. It's not only this article, though it does continue her fine tradition of coming off like an idiot in a situation that makes that almost impossible.
I find, like, she says Oh My God a lot.
" I can't really think of anything... Probably my list is too long that I can't cut it down to one!"
oh my gosh i love oxymorons! mostly morons...
Checcckkk out the haters on this blog. Out of this whole list of comments, i'd say the majority had horrible things to say about this interview. Clearly, the author had a vision of how he wanted to portray her, he wanted to make her sound like a bimbo. Any logical interviewer would've left the 'like's and the 'oh my gosh'es out. The person who wrote this had an agenda, and blogTO should be ashamed of publishing this article. Not only will Leah Miller and the MuchMusic team never do a blogTO interview again, but neither will CityTV, CTV, etc. Especially after reading the disgusting comments that were left after the article.
Word of advice guys, stop guzzling the haterade and try to be a little more respectful and supportive of fellow torontonians.
crazy theories: a billion, casual fluff pieces: one
move along.
Yeah. Yeah.
We all have different skill sets, that we have to use on a daily basis with our chosen profession.
Leah is great at her job - and I bet that if shoved into her position, 95% of you would fail.
Television personalities are notoriously given a bad rap from the jealous under-motivated losers out there.
I'm sure she's happy with the life she's made for herself.
Drop the negativity, please!
Gus, if that is your real name, explain to us how the fatwa you believe Ivan Fecan shall issue against this perennial-also-ran blog will alter even a single neutrino in the universe.
And do I understand you correctly? Narrow phonetic transcription and accurate quotation is now cause for excommunication?
Wow, people sure do love to cut down others who are successful and happy.
I completely agree. And I don't understand why they can't find a better host for the show. Why was this article written again??? It's not like I don't get enough of her airhead whineyness, and inappropriate times to talk to dancers every Tuesday and Wednesday
harmless puff piece. the vitriol is misplaced.
here's the dirty little not-so-secret of media and marketing: the shows/hosts/products/services are only as dumb as their audience. some may dumb it down for the masses, others are naturally dumb.
think of it as a mirror that is reflecting your own vapidness.
Gus, everyone will still do interviews with everyone. there's a tacit understanding that reader/viewer/user comments don't amount to shit, especially when the actual interview was innocuous.
Editor's note:
Anonymous reader comments that were merely blatant insults (i.e. comments not conforming to our comment policies) have been removed from this article.
Really? Do tell :)
That was several minutes of my life that I will never get back. Reader count minus one. Honestly...
blogto...yeah.
Recycling National Post stories from May? C'mon.
http://network.nationalpost.com/np/blogs/toronto/archive/2009/05/15/my-toronto-leah-miller.aspx
I think Cat Deeley is probably one of the best hosts on tv. Seriously.
Really? You think 95% of the people on here are so stupid they couldn't do Leah Miller's job? Too dumb to introduce videos or dancers? You implore others to "drop the negativity" and you start out your comment by calling others "haters" for denigrating Leah but then you swat everybody on the blog with one brush, claiming they would fail (even though you know nothing about any of them).
She wasn't given a bad rap because she is a TV personality, she is being given a hard time based on the crap that fell out of her mouth.
She's a VJ. Her target audience is made up of the under-16 crowd. Why are we expecting her to be Einstein?
It looks like the interviewer caught her in the middle of promoting her show - maybe she thought he was a SYTYCD fan and dumbed her answers down for him? I mean, he asked her about shopping. Not a very hard-hitting interview.
Let it go, people. Let it go.
She sounds like a fascinating creature.
While she almost looks relatively similar to that of a normal human being in these photos, those giant fake eyelashes just ruin it. Though I will admit she looks a lot better with a somewhat natural face than that clown make-up she usually has on. You know, the kind that is shot on with that make-up gun Homer invented on the Simpson's episode where he emulates Edison. *after being shot it in face* Marge: Homer! You've got it set on whore!
"Clearly, the author had a vision of how he wanted to portray her, he wanted to make her sound like a bimbo." Sorry Gus, she did that on her own.
MuchMusic was such a huge part of my childhood and teen years; my TV was glued on channel 29 for about 15 years. You know what, lots of VJs started off shaky a quite bad, but they improved...a lot. Can't say the same for Mrs. Miller. I got real tired of her trying to charm Canada with the little suburban housewife, making baked goods for guests shtick. I thought MuchMusic was looking for a Video Jockey? Her interviews consist of giving out cupcakes and asking Musicians their favourite colours.
Sorry Gus, this article didn't show Canadian viewers of MuchMusic & SYTYCD anything we didn't already know about her. She is the way she is and should not be making a living conducting interviews. Oh, wait, she doesn't even do that anymore on SYTYCD. hahaha She's just a voice-over track with the occasional random shot of her with the appropriate city landmark in the background or alone on an empty stage. Good, cause it's too painful and uncomfortable to watch her try to empathize and emotionally connect with the general public without looking completely fake and full of shit.
Canada (CTV) should pay attention to how the US conduct their hit show. First, get yourself a lively, charismatic and genuine host like Cat Deeley. Her Canadian counterpart is quite the abomination. Sorry Leah, I wish you well in another career, but a music video disk jockey and TV dancing show host isn't where you belong.
I don't know if it's the make up, but i think she has had her lips and eyes done. Something is off.
While everyone's complaining about the article or the dim-witted answers of Leah Miller, something that seems to be going unnoticed is that some commenters are blindly assuming the article was written by a man. Why is that? The author's name is Crystal. It says that right at the top.
What's up with these nonsensical assumptions? Or is the default gender of everyone male until proven otherwise? Weird.
wow. obviously this interviewer(if you can really call her that)has something against leah. its kind of sad actually. she's probably jealous because she works for blogto.com-not something to really write home about!
she seemed quite down to earth and thoughful in the national post piece. You guys are just a bunch of assholes.
im sure she's ã nice girl, but much just hasn't been the same as it used to be. I think the intended audience is 14 and could care less. its sad, losing street cred among music lovers due to unrelateable personalities.
The most disappointing part of this article to me wasn't that she had some unfortunate speech habits - it's that when she was given the opportunity to talk about Canadian music (which, as the interviewer indicates, she has a unique perspective on) she chose to talk about ... Feist and Arcade Fire. There wasn't anyone else who she's listened to in the last, oh, four years that she's also loved? Or at the very least, that she thought could use a little more promotion?
That's just embarrassing for someone who refers to herself as "always wanting to know what's going on."
HAHA Click here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nHCqObG6oRU to see Leah Miller curse on LIVE TV!
copy and paste this link http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nHCqObG6oRU into your address bar to see Leah Miller curse on Live TV. It happened yesterday
I agree with you, qwerty chic. I've always thought that she's had some work done. Something about her face looks plastic-y.
That being said, I think that Leah is a nice person who means well. It is not her fault that she was asked to host SYTYCDC. Obviously the producers saw something in her that they liked. I personally love Cat Deeley, and I think that she is exceptionally good at her job, but also the producers of that show saw that in Cat that they liked, which is why she has the job. It's not one person who can blamed for these things, it's a whole production. Same thing can be said about MuchMusic. You can't just look at the flaky hosts as the reason for the decline of the station, it's the whole team behind them! Someone had to hire them, right?
So yes, Leah kinda comes off as an air head here, and she does look pretty fake, but there are people who put her where she is now, and they should be scolded and blamed. I feel bad for her.
She wasn't asked to host the show she auditioned for it and was desperate to get the gig. Its plainly obvious shes not too bright.
She wasn't asked to host the show she auditioned for it and was desperate to get the gig. Its plainly obvious shes not too bright.
Leah Miller has to go!!!She is just not the right fit for SYTYCD. She is a Cat Deeley wannabe and does not do a good job at it. Really, I'm sure the producers can find someone else, anyone else, who could do a better job. It spoils the whole show - everytime I see her, I just cringe!!Please find a new host for the show!!!