‘Dance Moms’ Star Nia Sioux Alleges Abby Lee Miller Made Racist Remarks in a New Memoir

Nia Sioux, known for her years on Lifetime’s hit reality show Dance Moms, has accused former dance instructor Abby Lee Miller of making racist remarks toward her and criticizing her body.

Sioux, who appeared on the show from 2011 to 2017 alongside her mother Holly Frazier, was just 9 years old when the series began and 15 when it ended.

In her new memoir, Bottom of the Pyramid: A Memoir of Persevering, Dancing for Myself, and Starring in My Own Life, 24-year-old Sioux details several troubling incidents. She recalls a moment during the show’s second season when she wore her hair in braids, a style approved by production.

According to Sioux, Miller, 60, publicly insulted her on camera. “Abby told me that I needed to fix my hair because it looked awful,” Sioux writes. “She said — on camera, no less — ’It’s like a log coming out of the side of her head.’”

Sioux also recounts an off-camera incident when Miller allegedly asked her, “Don’t you just wish you had white-girl hair?” Sioux responded, “No.” Miller pressed, saying, “Oh really? Like you don’t think it would be much easier?” Sioux writes, “It didn’t matter what she said — I knew I didn’t want to be white. Unlike the other exchange, this one never aired.”

The memoir also highlights Miller’s ongoing criticism of Sioux’s body. Sioux claims Miller frequently targeted her feet, thighs, and legs. “She would say, ‘Well, you know your people have flat feet,’” Sioux recalls.

“This struck me as ignorant; I know plenty of Black dancers with perfectly arched feet! 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.’”

Sioux further writes that Miller’s critiques extended to her muscular legs and thighs, implying she was lazy or not working hard enough. “At one point in season 6, Abby talked about the size of my thighs in the dressing room. She implied that I was fat because I was not 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. Viewers and some of my castmates ate that up without question,” Sioux writes.

The memoir also touches on the racial undertones of several early solos Sioux performed under Miller’s direction, even before filming began. One solo, titled “Nattie of the Jungle,” featured a child being raised by monkeys, while another was called “Satan’s Li’l Lamb.”

Sioux says her mother often confronted Miller about these routines but she sometimes had to “bite her tongue” because she was too young to understand the racial implications and was just excited to perform.

Sioux’s book offers a stark look at her experiences growing up on a popular reality series and raises questions about how young performers, particularly children of color, were treated behind the scenes on Dance Moms.

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