Lifetime has completely severed all ties with Dance Moms star Abby Lee Miller after a mother accused her of using racist comments around her daughter. Miller had filmed a virtual special, which the network has now canceled. She had been with Lifetime for almost a decade and said last month she was moving on for reasons unrelated to this week’s controversy.
Back on Tuesday, Adriana Smith recalled a shocking moment from Season 8, when Miller told Smith’s then-7-year-old daughter, Kamryn Smith, she “grew up in the HOOD with only a box of 8 crayons, but I grew up in the country club with a box of 64 – don’t be stupid.” Smith understood this to mean Miller believed she was better than Smith and her daughter. “You told me to ‘LOOK in the MIRROR! That’s the only reason you are here!’ Kam told me she heard ‘they need a sprinkle of color!’” Smith wrote.
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Dance Moms producer Kori Kegg later supported Smith’s allegations, saying Miller’s comments “broke me as I was working on [the] show and pregnancy with my own black daughter,” reports E! News. Kegg said she should have left the show to support Smith and her daughter. “Seeing a 7-year-old little black girl be put in a box in a corner and treated so violently because of the color of her skin was heartbreaking,” Kegg wrote in her post. “It reminded me of when I ‘found out I was black’ at an age not much older than her.”
On Thursday, Miller apologized for her comments, saying she understood “and deeply regret how my words have effected (sic) and hurt those around me in the past, particularly those in the Black community.” Hours after that statement was published, Lifetime canceled plans to air Abby’s Virtual Dance Off, a remotely-filmed dance competition series. Lifetime completely ended its relationship with Miller, meaning if it renews Dance Moms for Season 9, she will not host, reports Yahoo Entertainment.
Dance Moms debuted in 2011, with Miller hosting the first six-and-a-half seasons. Cheryl Burke and Laurianne Gibson were brought in to host the rest of Season 7, but Miller was brought back for Season 8 after she completed her prison sentence for bankruptcy fraud. She was sentenced to a year and a day in prison and was released early in May 2018. Last month, she told fans on Instagram she was not extending her contract with Lifetime.
