Speaking with The Independent, Sioux says, “There were always moments like that. It wasn’t like, just a one-time thing. 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.” As for what the network, Lifetime, left on the cutting room floor, Sioux speculates, “I think they had to censor a lot of stuff because they still need to make her likable for TV. 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.”
Miller may have made for good TV, though likable isn’t a word many would associate with her abrasive, bullying behavior. Lifetime didn’t do much to obscure that, and many moments of microaggressions did make it in the show (enough that there are full YouTube compilations like “abby being RUDE & RACIST to nia for more than 10 minutes”). But Lifetime never intervened on any of this until 2020, when Dance Moms season eight star Adriana Smith detailed racist interactions that she and her daughter Kamryn had with Miller. She alleged that Miller once said to her off-camera, “I know you grew up in the HOOD with only a box of 8 crayons, but I grew in the Country Club with a box of 64—don’t be stupid.” Following Smith’s accusations, Lifetime canceled Abby’s Virtual Dance Off special. The public controversy prompted Miller to apologize “To Kamryn, Adriana, and anyone else I’ve hurt,” though Smith said Miller did not reach out personally.
Sioux didn’t receive an apology from Miller, and has distanced herself from the franchise. She declined to return for the reunion in 2024, saying that she was grateful to the show because it’s “the reason why I have such an amazing life now,” but she “just didn’t want to do it.” On the press tour for Bottom Of The Pyramid, she’s said she wanted the opportunity to tell her truth and change the narrative that was built around her on the show. Looking back, she says to The Independent that Lifetime protected Miller from racism fallout “more than they protected me in those situations.”
