Ten years ago, Dance Moms—the cult reality show about the girl prodigies of the Abby Lee Dance Company (ALDC)—felt cozy. I associate it with the faint, hypnotic glow of my laptop balanced on my knees, the episode breakdowns at school the next morning, the sudden influx—myself included—of girls joining my school’s Dance Club.
But rewatching now, the girls are younger than I remember, Abby Lee Miller meaner, the feeling heavier. Nia Sioux, who starred on the show, told me she feels similarly: “I always knew I was young, but once I was an adult and watched the show back, I was like, ‘Oh my gosh, we were babies.’ ”
Sioux found fame at age 9 when she joined the cast of Dance Moms. Now 24, she’s just become a best-selling author, with the release of her memoir last week. The underachiever stopped by the Free Press office this week to talk with my colleague Rafaela Siewert about the bullying she endured during the show’s seven brutal seasons. Listening to their conversation, I kept wondering: Why does my generation still love this show so much? Do I still love it?
