“Dance Moms” reboot faces heavy criticism after JonBenét Ramsey’s number
The television show “Dance Moms: A New Era” is facing severe criticism after one of the young dancer was assigned a role as JonBenet Ramsey and was supposed to pretend to be strangled.
Ramsey was a 6-year-old child Beauty contest Princess who was found strangled in her home in Boulder, Colorado in 1996. No one was ever arrested and the murder has remained unsolved.
In an episode of “Dance Moms: A New Era,” a revival of the 2011 show “Dance Moms,” 11-year-old Ashlan Scheide is given an unusual task for an upcoming competition.
“You become a glamorous beauty pageant girl. That was JonBenet, but then she was kidnapped and murdered,” Ashlan’s mother Lisa tells her daughter on the show.
Ashlan seemed disturbed when he learned the details of Ramsey’s death nearly three decades ago.
“This is really not for me, but I will do anything to win,” Ashlan said afterwards.
Ashlan rehearsed the number with teacher Gloria Hampton and performed the piece in a competition.
Viewers of the show, which is now streaming on Hulu, are flooding social media with their outrage.
Viewer Evie Nagy says she was horrified.
“I just thought, ‘I’m sorry, what?'” Nagy tells Inside Edition. “I just thought, ‘This is ridiculous.'”
Dance teacher Hampton recently spoke to Inside Edition to promote her show.
“I’ve been doing this for years,” Hampton said. “Last season we took 450 dances to a dance competition for five weeks and then to state. So I’m used to designing costumes for thousands of kids and 450 dances. Music really inspires me. I think it leads me to what I want to do. I hear something and get inspired by it and have a vision. It’s interesting. I really have a vision in my head when I hear something I like.”
Inside Edition reached out to Dance Moms: A New Era for comment on the episode featuring the JonBenet Ramsey number, but did not receive a response.
