‘Dance Moms’ Star Claims Abby Lee Miller Made Racist Remarks Toward Her

Dance Moms alum Nia Sioux is opening up about her negative experiences on the popular Lifetime show, alleging that dance teacher Abby Lee Miller made numerous racist and body-shaming remarks about her when she was a young dancer.

Sioux, who starred on Dance Moms from ages 9 to 15 in seven seasons from 2011 to 2017, writes candidly of her experience in her newly-released memoir, Bottom of the Pyramid: A Memoir of Persevering, Dancing for Myself, and Starring in My Own Life.

In the memoir, the now-24-year-old Sioux recalled an incident in Season 2 in which Miller allegedly told her to “fix her hair” that was in braids “because it looked awful.”

“She said — on camera, no less — ‘It’s like a log coming out of the side of her head,’” Sioux wrote, as per PEOPLE. In another incident off-camera, Miller allegedly asked Sioux, “Don’t you just wish you had white-girl hair?”

“I was taken aback by her question, but I responded, ‘No,’” Sioux wrote. “‘Oh really?’ she said. ‘Like you don’t think it would be much easier?’ Again, I told her no. It didn’t matter what she said — I knew I didn’t want to be white. Unlike the other exchange, this one never aired.”

Sioux’s solos under Miller’s tutelage also had racial undertones she didn’t understand as a child. Her first solo on the competition team was set to the song “Nattie of the Jungle,” about a child being raised by monkeys, while her next solo featured the song “Satan’s Li’l Lamb.”

Sioux said that while her mom, Holly Frazier, confronted Miller about those routines, she sometimes would stay silent for the sake of her daughter, who was just excited to be given a solo.

Sioux also recalled Miller criticizing her body throughout her time on Dance Moms, regularly commenting on her “bad feet,” as she allegedly believed “Black people were physically predisposed to having flat feet.”

“She would say, ‘Well, you know your people have flat feet.’ This struck me as ignorant; I know plenty of Black dancers with perfectly arched feet!” she wrote. “Yet, despite the fact that she actually believed this ridiculous generalization was true, she’d threaten punishment for my perceived shortcoming. ‘If you don’t point that foot,’ she’d warn, ‘I’m gonna come out there and break it.’”

“Comments came directly from Abby and trickled down to some of the girls and their moms, criticizing my thighs, my butt, and even my muscular legs,” she continued, adding that in Season 6, Miller talked about the size of her thighs in the dressing room, implying she was “fat” because she wasn’t working hard enough.

“This was just one of many comments Abby made to create an illusion that I was lazy or just not strong as a dancer,” she wrote. “Viewers and some of my castmates ate that up without question.”

Bottom of the Pyramid: A Memoir of Persevering, Dancing for Myself, and Starring in My Own Life is available now wherever you buy books.