Dance Moms alum Nia Sioux recently penned her memoir. Within, she detailed numerous claims of racism exhibited by her former instructor, Abby Lee Miller. However, Abby just spoke out against her claims. In her mind, Abby remembers her past interactions with Nia differently.
Abby Lee Miller remembers things differently to Nia Sioux on Dance Moms
In 2011, Nia, then an 11-year-old student, first appeared on Dance Moms. More often than not, Nia found herself ranked at the bottom of Abby’s pyramid, which likely destroyed her young mindset. However, behind the scenes, according to Nia, blatantly insensitive behaviors and racist remarks often fell out of Abby’s mouth.
Since then, Nia has taken control of her former narratives via her memoir, cheekily titled “Bottom of the Pyramid.”
As Nia penned, she rarely received solo roles, and when she did, these numbers typically required a tokenized dancer. While her peers received appealing lyrical solos, Nia, the sole Black dancer on her cast at that time, often got handed slave characters, all while wearing “mocking” afro wigs for songs like They Call Me Laquifa.
In Season 3, we watched Nia finally rise to the top of the pyramid, right before snagging the role of Rosa Parks. But even then, Abby put Nia through the wringer, all while hinting that this empowering role could still go to someone else, whose skin color failed to honor Rosa’s plight.
In her memoir, Abby also reportedly asked Nia, “Don’t you just wish you had white-girl hair?” Abby also titled Nia’s first solo, Nattie of the Jungle, a dance piece that was allegedly about a child raised by monkeys. In all of these complaints, Abby has a different take.
As Abby recently explained via TMZ, “I have different memories compared to what the girls have. I remember doing a lot of good for them.” Regardless, this (allegedly) wrongly accused woman does not “plan to sue or take legal action as of now. It’s Nia’s freedom of speech.”
Dance Moms is available to stream on Lifetime.
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