Girl performs routine about JonBenet Ramsey murder on ‘Dance Moms’ reboot
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A reality competition show sparked outrage after one of the performers did a routine inspired by the 1996 slaying of JonBenet Ramsey.
Ramsey was a six-year-old beauty pageant princess who was found strangled to death at her home in Boulder, Colorado.
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The girl’s murder has gone unsolved for 27 years, and police don’t appear to be anywhere near making an arrest.
Now, the TV show Dance Moms: A New Era is facing a ton of backlash after one of its young dancers was forced to learn about the tragic tale, then perform a routine in which she pretends to be strangled.
“You’re going to be a glitz pageant girl,” Lisa, the mother of 11-year-old Ashlan Scheide, tells her daughter on the episode, according to Inside Edition.
“That’s who JonBenet was, but then she got kidnapped and murdered.”
In the episode, Ashlan is seen going over the routine with her dance teacher Gloria “Miss Glo” Hampton, who reminds the dancer that “it’s a really sad, tragic story.”
The coach added: “So you’re playing this young child who was put on display at all these pageants and your parents want this fame and stardom for you — but is that what they really want?”
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Miss Glo then leaves it up to mother and daughter to research “everything” about Ramsey, which Lisa does, even giving Ashlan timestamps of the murder investigation.
Despite the traumatic story, Ashlan fully commits to the piece, saying, “This is really not for me, but I’ll do anything for the win.”
After the episode aired, one X user was “outraged” by the “disrespectful” episode while a second user asked, “Who the hell thought something so tragic and despicable would be a good idea to perform?”
Over on Reddit’s Dance Moms reboot page, one viewer called Ashlan’s performance “extremely disturbing” while another noted that it “didn’t even remotely tell the story of JonBenet Ramsey.”
They added: “They could’ve easily done a beauty pageant routine without exploiting JonBenet’s murder.”
In the end, Ashlan’s performance earned her a fourth-place finish in the competition and presumably a lifetime of nightmares.
She told her mother after getting slammed by her coach, “I kinda know how JonBenet felt. I’m never good enough.”
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