Bottom of the Pyramid: A Memoir of Persevering, Dancing for Myself, and Starring in My Own Life

by Nia Sioux

As a Christmas present, she would buy us matching bra and panty sets because “every little girl should have underwear that matches.”

Excuse me..

“Nattie of the Jungle” by Ken Lonnquist, and it’s about a child who is left in the wild to be raised by monkeys. The lyrics detail a girl who is unwashed, with a dirty, Tarzan-like appearance.

Sooo racist

The song goes on to liken her to a gorilla before closing with the chorus and a slew of monkey sounds.

…..

“Satan’s Li’l Lamb” by Sam Harris.

It seemed like whenever Abby heard Africa, she automatically thought of me.

Once, in rehearsal, Abby asked me, “Don’t you just wish you had white-girl hair?”

This made me tear up. How can you say that to anyone, let alone an impressionable little girl?

According to her, my hair was limiting her artistic freedom.

So we resorted to a new method of securing them to our heads—really, to our scalps: zip ties. Yes, one of the hair and makeup artists on set, who was incredibly clever in adapting to any situation or wardrobe crisis, developed the zip-tie method.

Abby, though, resented us receiving this gift and complained to production that we did not need them. She had a tantrum—one of many over the years—regarding the special treatment we received.

If fans sent us fan mail to the studio, she would keep it and claim that we did not need anything.

Abby believed that Black people were physically predisposed to have flat feet. She would say, “Well, you know your people have flat feet. You know, because you’re African American and they have flat feet.” This struck me as ignorant;

I’m very white, and have very flat feet. Abby is an idiot.

“If you don’t point that foot,” she’d warn, “I’m gonna come out there and break it.”

She frequently called me fat, pointing out my big butt and hips.

We used lingerie as costumes as well.

So inappropriate

I remember another teammate, Kendall Vertes (who had joined the team back in season 2), rolling her eyes whenever she found out we were paired for a duet together.

Mean girl behavior is learned. If you watched the show this shouldn’t surprise you

Abby began talking about how I was the weak link and admitted that she’d never asked for me to be on the show. She went on and on about her vision for the ALDC and its competition team. She wanted a line of skinny girls who were the same height, with blond hair and blue eyes. She then proceeded to say that she didn’t ask for “a Tootie,” referring to Kim Fields’s character on the hit 1980s show The Facts of Life.

It’s wild because the only girl that fits this description is Chloe and Paige, and Abby was extremely abusive to both of them. She literally threw a chair at Paige, and made fun of Chloe’s disability. She is just a bully.

The subtext of the statement—that she didn’t ask for a Black girl to be on her team of all-white dancers—hit hard.

Abby turned beet red. She stalked toward me and yanked me by the arm, knocking me off balance. I was shocked that the situation had escalated to the point where Abby would put her hands on me.

One of my biggest accomplishments during season 4—that, unfortunately, wasn’t shown on Dance Moms—was receiving that crown I had dreamed about as a kid. In 2014, I won my first national title. It was a big deal at the dance studio, and all the students at the studio were so happy for me. I was crying onstage as they crowned me.

😓

Jess had come to Dance Moms—and before that, its spinoff show, Abby’s Ultimate Dance Competition—with a calculated plan to make JoJo a star.1

Rather than show the incident in its entirety, the episode seemed to protect Abby and any sense of “likability” she had with the audience. Usually when a kid cried, the producers were all over it, but since this was so malicious and vindictive, they had to protect their interests. This was the kind of thing that could’ve gotten the show canceled—or at least in really hot water.

Are these people for real? These were the same women who’d supported nine-year-olds wearing skimpy and inappropriate outfits and dancing mature routines. Maddie literally did the “Chandelier” music video in a nude leotard at like

Always thought this was weird and gross. So inappropriate. The world is full of pedophiles. Why on earth would someone allow their daughter to wear what Maddie wore.

She claimed my mom didn’t love me because she worked

As I working mom, this infuriates me.

Jill had no issue with her white daughter playing a Black civil rights activist. If the role was available,

Typical Jill

(In a recent interview, Jill explains that she still sees no issue with Kendall playing Rosa Parks.4)

It was as if to her, the “race card” equated to an “easy win.” That never sat right with me.

If a dance called for an animal, the help, a thug, a thief, a kidnapper, or a gang member, I was usually the one cast in these roles.

“Nia’s the weak link” or “Nicaya has way more energy than her” or “Nicaya is the real performer.”

Since Maddie had been working with the pop star Sia, she had gotten tickets through her connections. She invited Kenzie and Kendall to the Taylor Swift concert with her. I was hurt by this because I would have loved to go and would have gladly paid for my own ticket, but I wasn’t asked. Also, at this point there were only four of us girls who lived in and were from Pittsburgh. I was literally the one girl left out. They even brought Kendall’s older sister over me.

So mean.

“Nia has privates. Does anyone ever say [anything about] that?” to which Jill responded, “Obviously Nia is no threat to anybody.”

Again, typical Jill

“Holly, this bothers you because you’ve been an absentee mom—let’s face it.”2 This was such a loaded comment

that because a Black mom works, it means she isn’t in her children’s lives. But my mom had given up her career for me—the very opposite of an absentee mom.

Abby told you to do something, you had to do it. The other girls were doing turns and beautiful jumps, showing off their flexibility. I, meanwhile, was told to do a death drop and jazz moves, which I knew were not what a ballet school would be looking for.

Abby decided it wasn’t worth staying for my portraits and, on her way out the door, told the photographer, “Oh, you don’t have to spend much time on her because she’s not gonna be bookable.”

Abby gave them her suggestions, which didn’t include me. She even tried to talk them out of choosing me, but the magazine handpicked me to join Maddie and Kendall.

❤️