Nia Sioux of Dance Moms fame has told The Independent how the reality show’s network, Lifetime, allegedly chose not to air some of her former dance teacher’s more egregious comments.
Sioux, whose real name is Nia Sioux Frazier, appeared on all seven seasons of the reality series from 2011 to 2017 while she was nine to 15 years old alongside her mother, Holly Frazier. The show followed Sioux and other cast members, sisters Maddie and Mackenzie Ziegler, Kendall Vertes, Chloe Lukasiak, JoJo Siwa, sisters Brooke Hyland and Paige Hyland, Brynn Rumfallo and Kalani Hilliker as they learned and performed dance routines within one week with the help of their “tough love” dance teacher, Abby Lee Miller. It also captured the drama surrounding their sometimes overbearing stage mothers.
Throughout the series, Sioux, 24, was often typecast as the only Black dancer on the team — given solos that saw her wearing an afro wig and animal print, or only cast in lead roles for routines themed around slavery or the Civil Rights movement. She opens up about these experiences in detail in her new memoir, Bottom of the Pyramid, released today.
In the book, she details one unaired fight between her mother and Miller, who she said wanted “a line of skinny girls who were the same height, with blond hair and blue eyes,” and “didn’t ask for ‘a Tootie,’” referring to the only Black character on the 1980s sitcom The Facts of Life.
Speaking to The Independent, Sioux said there were similar incidents that did not make it to air.
“There were always moments like that. It wasn’t like, just a one-time thing,” she claimed. “There were a ton of moments where there were microaggressions, where there was just blatant racism.”
“It would happen frequently. It wasn’t just the few times that I mentioned in the book,” Sioux continued. “It was a recurring thing.”
As for why these moments were never aired on television, the former reality star believes those moments had to be censored for Miller to remain “likable” to the audience.
“I think they had to censor a lot of stuff because they still need to make her likable for TV,” she said. “If you think about it, she did make really good TV. She lives her life like a movie. So it’s definitely easy to kind of make good TV out of that.”
While Sioux understands why Lifetime chose to handle things the way it did, she questioned why the network didn’t pay more attention to her and the others affected by Miller’s words and actions.
“They protected her more than they protected me in those situations,” she said.
The Independent has contacted Lifetime and representatives for Miller for comment.
In 2020, former Dance Moms cast members and viewers began calling out Miller’s alleged racist behavior, leading to all of her spin-off shows with the network being canceled. The dance teacher later published a formal apology on Instagram, specifically addressing season eight dancer Kamryn and her mother, Adriana, while leaving Sioux’s name out of it.
Despite not receiving an apology, Sioux told The Independent that she has found closure over the years, noting that her dance teacher hasn’t changed since they last met and that she does not plan to contact her again.
“I’ve had to distance myself from people who are still friends with her and associate with her,” she added. “It's hurtful 'cause she's done so much to me and said so many things about me. Anyone who was friends with her, if they were my friends, they couldn't also be her friends, because I know that's how she feels about me.”
Bottom of the Pyramid is out now.
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