Dance Moms’ Asia Monet Ray on Growing Up on TV

She walked onto our screens as a kid with more stage presence than performers three times her age, and now she is telling that story herself, on her own terms. Dance Moms’ Asia Monet Ray sat down on The Pre-Game with Kayla Nicole, newly 21, to talk about who she actually is now versus who she was when audiences got attached to years ago.

If you grew up watching her, you probably remember one very specific version of Asia. But a lot has changed since then, and in this conversion, she gets deep into the career, relationships, and experiences that shaped who she is now. (Spoiler: it goes way past the dance floor.)

Over the course of the episode, Asia gets into growing up on camera, breaking a cycle of perfectionism that nearly ran her into the ground, Gen Z sobriety, her pivot into music, her very specific fashion opinions, and how she thinks about body image after growing up in the spotlight. You can watch the full conversation below while we walk through the moments that stuck.

Dance Moms’ Asia Monet Ray: The One We Met vs. Who She Is Now

Most people still picture Asia mid-routine, the tiny competition kid who could out-perform the room. That’s how she became recognizable, and she’s the first to acknowledge it shaped everything that came after.

But the bigger story is what happens when you grow up on TV and then have to figure out who you are away from it. That’s where this conversation lives, and where she starts defining herself on her own terms.

Who Is Asia Monet Ray?

For anyone who needs the resume, she has been building it since before most kids start kindergarten. On the episode, Kayla Nicole recapped the arc: Asia made history as the youngest-ever Starpower national championship dance champion at just five years old. She then took her talents to Abby’s Ultimate Dance Competition and Dance Moms, and eventually landed her own Lifetime series, Raising Asia.

From there, she kept moving. She went from dancer to actress with roles on Grey’s Anatomy and American Crime Story. Then carved out her own lane as a recording artist and singer in pop and R&B. Asia Monet Ray has always been a triple threat, and she’s never really stopped adding to the list.

What Asia Monet Ray Is Doing Now

Right now, Asia is newly 21 and pouring everything into music. On The Pre-Game, she made it clear this next chapter is about stepping into adulthood as an artist and a woman, completely on her own terms.

She has new music on the way, and her last project tells you exactly where her head is. That album was self-titled, almost a reintroduction, built to show that R&B and soul are the core of who she is as an artist. 

She grew up on the greats, and she wants her work to set a standard she can keep climbing past. Her next single is coming soon, and she says it pulls straight from her journal.

Growing Up on Camera and What Reality TV Doesn’t Show

Here is the behind-the-scenes detail that reframes everything. Asia shared that while filming Dance Moms, the cast had to wear the same outfit, hair, and makeup for a week straight so producers could stitch scenes together into one continuous episode. A fight shot on Monday could get spliced right into footage from Thursday.

Then the confessionals did the rest. She described how a moment of conflict from earlier in the week would get cut against a later interview, so a small disagreement looked like an ongoing feud. In reality, she and her mom were fine by the next day.

Her point is a fair one. Audiences got attached to a character and forgot there was a real person underneath, with a real life and a real mom. She says people still approach her mother asking if she’s the woman from the show. Her mom just laughs it off and says that’s her twin sister.

Breaking the Cycle of Perfectionism

Asia opened up about a perfectionism she called genuinely debilitating. She would record a song everyone had already approved, then re-record it seven times. She could nail a dance and still find nothing good in it.

None of the awards mattered. No amount of being on the right track quieted it. She traced a lot of it back to being expected to be perfect while cameras stayed in her face, until she felt like all eyes were on her even when nobody was actually looking.

The pandemic became her first real breakthrough in unlearning it. Now, when she catches that old mindset creeping back, she gives herself space: she steps away from a song, revisits it the next day with fresh ears, meditates, or calls the people who will hype her up. The biggest thing her younger self would be proud of, she says, is letting go of a perfection that was never possible to reach in the first place.

Gen Z Sobriety and Turning 21

Plot twist for a show literally built around a pregame cocktail: Asia does not drink! She celebrated turning 21 completely sober. And when her friends handed her a shot at her party, she pointed out that everyone was actually drinking Shirley Temples.

She thinks this might be where her generation is headed. Not drinking, she said, could be the new face of Gen Z. It tracks with how she grew up, raised by two parents in the fitness industry, and with a personality that likes staying fully aware of what’s happening around her.

On Body Image and Public Scrutiny

The conversation turned to Ariana Grande stepping back from public life amid relentless commentary about her body, and Asia had a lot to say from experience. She described how her own body changed fast as she grew up on camera. And how that kind of scrutiny can make anyone hyper-aware of themselves.

Her rule is simple: she doesn’t comment on anyone else’s body. She pointed out that you never know what someone is navigating. And that a comment about someone being “too small” can wound just as much as any other. She also questioned when everyone on the internet became a doctor, and made the case that comparison is the fastest way to kill your own joy.

From Dancer to Artist: Asia’s Pivot to Music

For Asia, moving from dance into music isn’t a side quest. She was blunt about it: this is her plan A, and she doesn’t keep a plan B. She’s watched people treat music like a gimmick, a viral one-off they never have to repeat. And she wants nothing to do with that framing when this is her actual life.

She’s also not leaving dance behind. As she put it, she just added heels to what she was already doing, and she stays deeply connected to the dance community that made her. That refusal to abandon the thing that built you is a throughline across former child stars figuring out their next act, and it echoes in our article: Nia Sioux Dance Moms Memoir.

Her advice to the next generation of kids chasing this? Believe in yourself to the point of delusion. In her words, when people start thinking you’re crazy, you’re probably doing something right.

Asia Monet Ray Is Just Getting Started

If you still think of Asia Monet Ray as the 5-year-old powerhouse from Dance Moms, consider this your reintroduction. At 21, she’s making new music on her own terms, letting go of the perfectionism she grew up with, and building a career that feels entirely her own. The dance floor may be where audiences first met her, but it’s clearly not where her story ends. 

For the full conversation, including the fashion debates and the story about the time she tried to foster a camel, watch the complete episode of The Pre-Game on YouTube and dig into more of the talent-led conversations happening across Dear Media.