Abby Lee Miller may have brought the laughs season after season on Lifetime’s hit reality series, ‘Dance Moms,’ but execs at the network weren’t exactly smiling when they got wind of her recent racism scandal.
Details inside:
Tuesday (June 2), Miller took to social media to stand in solidarity with the Black Lives Matter movement by participating in the #BlackOutTuesday campaign. However, she was called out for being a hypocrite by Adriana Smith, the mom of dancer Kamryn Smith from season 8 of the show.
After Adriana blasted Miller’s show of support on Instagram by writing “#DONTACTLIKEYOUCARE” and “NOPE” over a screenshot of the dance coach’s Instagram post, she followed up by stating:
“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 continued. “Let me remind you what you said in case you forgot! You told me to ‘LOOK in the MIRROR! That’s the only reason you are here!’ Kam told me she heard ‘they needed a sprinkle of color!
As tears streamed down my face I look over at my 7 year old and back at the camera and say, this is my EVERYDAY life as a black woman,” she wrote. “This is nothing new to me. But what I’m not going to have happen is have this racist person have any part of my daughter’s life as of this moment.”
As Adriana’s story gained traction, Miller took to Twitter on Thursday (June 4) to apologize.
Despite the apology, Adriana remained unimpressed.
“[I do] not accept Abby’s apology because her apology was not sincere,” she said. “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.”
After other dance moms came out to report similar interactions with Miller (based on race), Lifetime revealed it has canceled plans to air ‘Abby’s Virtual Dance Off ‘ – a 12-episode pandemic-friendly ‘Dance Moms’ spin-off.
As if that wasn’t enough, the 53-year-old – who has served jail time for felony bankruptcy fraud – won’t be returning to ‘Dance Moms’ if the show is renewed for a ninth season.