Started From the Bottom NOW SHE'S HERE

In her new book, Bottom of the Pyramid, the Dance Moms alum opens up about surviving child stardom, racism and reality TV's most villainous teacher

- MOLLY MCGUIGAN

For years, millions of viewers watched Nia Sioux consistently placed at the bottom of Abby Lee Miller's infamous pyramid — a weekly ranking of her dancers — on Lifetime's hit reality series Dance Moms (2011-2019), which pulled back the curtain on Abby Lee Dance Company's Junior Elite Competition Team in Pittsburgh.

(Sioux joined the show when she was 9 and starred alongside alums including JoJo Siwa, Maddie Ziegler and her friend Chloe Lukasiak.)

Sioux declined to participate in the 2024 show reunion: “Just the thought of being among many of my former castmates made me sick with anxiety,” she writes in the book. “I didn’t trust them or some of the producers. Production had seven years to turn my narrative around and failed to do so.” (Us Weekly reached out to Miller and she did not comment.)

Today, the 24-year-old, the only original Black cast member, is telling her story — and reclaiming her power. “Being at the bottom isn't the worst thing,” she tells Us. “If you start at the bottom, the only way you can go is up.” In her new memoir, Bottom of the Pyramid: A Memoir of Persevering, Dancing for Myself and Starring in My Own Life (out Nov. 4), Sioux — a content creator, activist and actor — opens up about the abuse she experienced on the show, often at the hands of the notoriously mercurial Miller and her castmates.