Hi, welcome to Cheers. I'm your host, Avery Woods.

Hi, Nea. How are you? I'm good. How are you? I just think you're so gorgeous and I love your story. And thank you for being here, by the way, and coming on to talk about your book.

Thanks for having me. I'm so happy to be here and talk about my story. Yeah. It's so powerful. And I think just your cover alone on bottom of the pyramid, you sitting on top of all of the previous dance costumes, it's like such a powerful message.

Thank you.

That you're embracing it and in control of it.

And I watched every episode of Dance Moms, but it wasn't until I was a little bit older.

Okay.

And so I always felt like I was a very old soul motherly figure. And so you were always in my heart. Like I really just had a soft spot for you as so many people did millions and millions of people because there's just a difference in the way that you were treated. Thank you. Yeah. And I will say that so openly all day, but like,

I saw it and it's also different because you were pretty much the only black girl until what season.

I mean, season seven was when Cameron Bridges came on and I was so happy. She's incredible.

Yeah. But like she came on that season. But pre up until then, we had some black dancers on every now and then, but there were only like a like two, I think they're only like two or three. And they only came for like a week. Yeah. Maybe three. But that was about it. Yeah. That was about it. And that's hard when you're at that age, you're on national television. Yeah, the show is like literally my life. Like, yes, I have some kind of life outside the show, but not really. I mean, we would film like 40 weeks out of a year sometimes. Yeah. So it's like that's that's like your whole life. That's your whole life

when you're a little kid, just trying to be a kid and also and a very intense high pressure

environment. That's not normal, you know? So for those that are not familiar with dance moms,

how would you describe yourself? Ooh, that's a great question.

Okay, so for me, I would describe myself as kind of like an old soul like you were saying.

I feel like I always knew who I was, even though I went through a lot of obstacles and a lot of adversity, I still always knew who I was,

even when I got knocked down. I still always had like a confidence about me. And I'm also someone who's not afraid to speak up or like fight for what's right or like

you know tell someone the truth i'm just i've always been that person i like to be real

like to keep it real uh but at the same time i just i have like a lot of love for like the people

in my life that i love or just like people who supported me along the way

or whoever really like I just I have like a lot of love in my heart and I like to I like to spread

it yeah and I can sense that and we were just watching a clip when you said you stand up for

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