Nia Sioux Says Writing Her Memoir Helped Her Heal From ‘Dance Moms’ Days

There are few experiences more surreal than watching your childhood unfold on television for the world to dissect. But for Nia Sioux, the little girl who entered the spotlight at just nine years old on Dance Moms, that reality became her everyday life.

On She’s So Lucky with Les Alfred, Sioux opened up about what it’s like to step into adulthood after that kind of public childhood, how she’s finding closure through writing, and why her new memoir, Bottom of the Pyramid, feels like the beginning of a new chapter.

Looking back with a new perspective

Sioux explains that writing her book has been a way to revisit her childhood experiences through adult eyes. “When you’re in your 20s, you do a lot of reflection,” she says. “You’re coming out from being a teenager, there’s a lot of change happening, and right now it feels like I’m coming into my own.”

That process hasn’t always been easy. Revisiting old episodes of Dance Moms sometimes left her emotional. Watching her nine-year-old self on screen didn’t always feel real.

But instead of avoiding it, she leans into discomfort. “Some of the things that happened on the show were very difficult to go through,” she explains. “I try not to think of them too much, but I’ve learned it’s also very important to go back and revisit things and get that closure.”

Why closure matters

For Sioux, closure isn’t simply forgetting the past. For years, she stayed quiet about her experiences, partly because she didn’t want to stir up drama. But silence didn’t equal healing. “To have closure, my story needs to be told,” she says. “And my story was never told.”

That story includes being the only Black girl on the show for much of its run, a reality that shaped her identity in ways she couldn’t fully process at the time. “It’s a really big deal, and I never talked about that,” Sioux explains. “Now that I’ve been able to write the book, I feel like I can finally put this in the past.”

Reclaiming the “bottom of the pyramid”

The title of Sioux’s memoir comes directly from the label she carried on the show. While some fans questioned why she would choose a phrase that seemed negative, her reasoning was clear. “That was the label I was given on the show, and it kind of followed me throughout my whole life,” she says. “So part of the reason why I gave my book that title was to reclaim it.”

For her, it’s now a symbol of resilience. “No matter how you’re perceived, only you really get to dictate who you are as a person,” Sioux explains. “I don’t see myself as being at the bottom of the pyramid. I know who I am, I know what I’ve done, and I know that I’ve been successful.”

Life lessons from being judged

Growing up in competitive dance meant constant evaluation, but television amplified it to another level. Sioux reflects on how normalized judgment became for her, even when it wasn’t healthy. “When it happens, I don’t think anything of it because to me it was just normal,” she admits. “But honestly, it’s not normal.”

The resilience she developed through those experiences is something she now recognizes as both a strength and a challenge. She acknowledges that it took years to unlearn the idea that being judged was inevitable. “Just because you can do something doesn’t mean you should,” she advises.

Owning her adulthood

Sioux points to the cultural shifts of recent years as one reason she felt ready to tell her story. The conversations around race, representation, and identity that came to the forefront after 2020 created a space where her experiences could be heard and understood. “If I would have put something out like this years ago, it probably would have been watered down,” she says. “But now, people are going to be more receptive to it.”

Bottom of the Pyramid isn’t an ending—it’s Sioux’s declaration of self. The book is her way of saying, “Here I am, and this is my story,”  finally permitting herself to share her truth.

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