Dance Moms: A New EraThe reboot of the successful reality show premiered on August 7 and is already causing controversy after one of the last episodes featured a dance routine that fans described as “disturbing.”

An episode of the new season, streaming on Hulu, includes a scene in which 11-year-old dancer Ashlan is assigned a number to imitate JonBenet Ramsey, the six-year-old beauty pageant princess who was found strangled in her Boulder, Colorado, home in 1996.

“I want you to find out about JonBenet. I want you to know everything about her,” principal Gloria Hampton tells Ashlan.

The next moment, Ashlan’s mother Lisa says to her daughter, “You’re going to be a glamorous beauty pageant girl. That was JonBenet, but then she was kidnapped and murdered.”

An uncomfortable looking Ashlan replies, “This is really not for me, but I will do whatever it takes to win.”

After rehearsing the number, Ashlan takes the stage to perform the number at a competition. Hampton reminds the young girl, “Remember, it’s a really sad, tragic story. So you’re playing this little kid who’s been paraded in all these pageants, and your parents want this fame and celebrity for you – but is that what they really want?”

Dressed in a white leotard and tutu, Ashlan performs the dance, which includes a moment where she pretends to be strangled.

Fans were horrified by the number and gave free rein to their outrage on social media.

“Did anyone find the JonBenét Ramsey dance insensitive and disrespectful?” wrote one user of the Dancing mothers Reddit forum citing a moment from the episode where some moms joked that Ashlan’s makeup made her “look like what (JonBenet) looked like after she was strangled.”

“My jaw literally dropped. This seems extremely disrespectful to this poor little girl,” the user continued.

“It was extremely disturbing,” agreed another fan. “I don’t think a dance about Jonbenet could ever be in good taste. Simply because there is no happy ending, just an emphasis on a gruesome murder of a child. They easily could have done a beauty pageant segment without exploiting Jonbenet’s murder.”

“I think it was super tasteless and also somehow had literally nothing to do with the case. They could have made it about pageant kids in general,” said another.

“Yeah, this almost made me stop watching the show,” wrote another. “I understand it’s a well-known case and has been mentioned before (eg Black Patsy) but the way they handled it was so wrong and asking a young child to research a case involving a child’s SA is absolutely grotesque.”

Another added: “I was disturbed. If I had been in the audience and didn’t know what was going to happen, I would have sat there with a huge WTF look on my face.”

“Absolutely disgusting. Any adult who made a little girl do something like this should be deeply ashamed!” said one YouTube commenter.

“An adult telling a child to research and learn ‘everything’ about Jonbenet is sooooo crazy. No child should be subjected to such trauma, let alone pressured into expressive dancing over a child who was brutally murdered in their own home,” wrote another.

Talk to Inside Edition Before the new season, Hampton said, “I’ve been doing this for years. Last season we took 450 dances for five weeks to a dance competition and then to the state championships. So I’m used to designing costumes for thousands of kids and 450 dances.”

She added: “Music really inspires me. I think it guides me towards what I want to do. I hear something and I get inspired by it and I have a vision. It’s interesting. I really have a vision in my head when I hear something I like.”