Dance mom accuses Abby Lee Miller of racist remarks
The parent of a child who appeared on “Dance Moms” in 2019 accused star Abby Lee Miller of making racist remarks.
This week in an Instagram post that followed the ongoing protests of the killing of George Floyd by a Minneapolis police officer, Adriana Smith quoted Miller as saying, “I know you grew up in the HOOD with only a box of 8 crayons, but I grew up in the Country Club with a box of 64 — don’t be stupid.”
Ms. Smith’s then-7-year-old daughter, Kamryn Smith, appeared in the eighth season of “Dance Moms.”
Addressing Miller, Adriana Smith wrote, “Do you remember you told me ‘Do you want me to tell you why you are really here’ lol as if I didn’t know.” She said Miller continued, “LOOK in the MIRROR! That’s the only reason you are here.”
Miller posted to her own Instagram account Thursday evening, writing, “I genuinely understand and deeply regret how my words have effected and hurt those around me in the past, particularly those in the Black community. To Kamryn, Adriana, and anyone else I’ve hurt, I am truly sorry. I realize that racism can come not just from hate, but also from ignorance. No matter the cause, it is harmful, and it is my fault. While I cannot change the past or remove the harm I have done, I promise to educate myself, learn, grow, and do better. While I hope to one day earn your forgiveness, I recognize that words alone are not enough. I understand it takes time and genuine change.”
Representatives for Collins Avenue Entertainment, which produces “Dance Moms,” could not be reached.
In late April Lifetime ordered “Dance Moms: Abby’s Virtual Dance-Off,” a remotely produced series featuring Miller critiquing self-submitted videos. No air date for the show had been announced but on Friday a Lifetime representative said the network does not have plans to air the show “currently.” The network has no long-term contract with Miller for additional seasons of “Dance Moms.”
Early seasons of “Dance Moms” filmed at Miller’s studio in Penn Hills, and the show returned to Pittsburgh in 2019 for season eight, which aired from June to September last year. In 2017, Miller was sentenced to prison for bankruptcy fraud. In 2018, not long after her release, Miller was diagnosed with a form of non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma.
As first reported by E! News, Adriana Smith wrote in her Instagram post she was tired of being silent “because of a contract.
“I’m sure most people will say ‘why did you go on the show?’” Adriana Smith wrote.
“Auditioned and booked the show why wouldn’t we go? Call me naive, I thought with cancer and jail time maybe she had changed just a little bit. Well #season8 proved that was a complete lie.”
After Miller’s apology post, Adriana Smith released a statement to Entertainment Weekly, saying that she does “not accept Abby’s apology because her apology was not sincere.
“My purpose with my original post was to share my story and how it negatively impacted my daughter and it resonated with many others because of the distressing times in our country,” Adriana Smith wrote. “At this point, this is bigger than me and Kamryn. It’s about the potential effect that she has on the future of dance and negative, stereotypical influences on young, aspiring dancers of color.”
She added, “I firmly believe that if Abby was truly sorry, she would have apologized a year ago when she exposed my then 7-year-old daughter to her first account of racism.”
E! News reported a Facebook post by former “Dance Moms” producer Kori Kingg responded to Adriana Smith’s inital allegations.
“Some would say I should be quiet about this. But THIS THIS!?! THIS broke me as I was working on [the] show and pregnant with my own black daughter. In hind sight, I too should have left. I should have stood with my sister, Adriana Janae Smith and supported gorgeous baby Kam and left too,” she wrote, per E! News. “Seeing a 7 year old little black girl be put in a box in a corner and treated so violently because of the color of her skin was heartbreaking. It reminded me of when I ‘found out I was black’ at an age not much older than her.”
Camille Bridges, a mom whose daughter was a regular on the seventh season of “Dance Moms,” sent an email to E! News, writing that Miller tried to “spin [her daughter Camryn] as being the poor one and there on scholarship. I shut that down immediately. She loves appropriating our culture and never appreciating it. She did not give black choreographers on the show acknowledgment of their work. She continuously put Camryn in afros.”
While Camille Bridges wrote she “cannot remember everything,” she described the environment as “hostile” in her email to E! News.
“We were so relieved when she was gone especially when we thought she wasn’t coming back,” Camille Bridges wrote, referencing Miller’s legal troubles. “When she returned, I looked at Camryn and told her we’re leaving. I didn’t care anymore about the ‘platform.’ I was done. The woman is a mess. She is incredibly two-faced. She would say the most terrible things on camera, then tell Camryn how she was better than the girls on the team, mainly the ones she trained. It was a traumatic experience that I wish on no one.”