Nia Sioux became a child star on 'Dance Moms' when she was 9. Now she wants her millions of followers to start seeing her as an adult.

Nia Sioux was just 9 when she first pirouetted and leaped across our TV screens dressed in glittery costumes and colorful leotards, dancing in competitions on the Lifetime reality series "Dance Moms."

The hugely successful show followed a group of girls (and their moms) aged six to 16 who were training to become professional dancers under the tutelage of controversial dance coach Abby Lee Miller. She appeared on the show for its first seven seasons before leaving in 2017.

Since then, Sioux's kept busy. She's had numerous acting roles and recently released music — and spent years building up her platform as a social media influencer.

Now 21, she works with brands — including drink company SunnyD and makeup brand Benefit Cosmetics — on sponsored partnerships while studying American Literature at UCLA. Across TikTok, YouTube, and Instagram, she has 15 million followers.

But growing a social media presence wasn't just a savvy career choice — it's helped her process and open up about her experiences as a child star, despite being surrounded by online users who don't want to see her grow up, she told Insider.

With 5.8 million Instagram followers and 1.1 million YouTube subscribers to her name, Sioux hesitantly told Insider that she "would hope" that people considered her to be an influencer.

The dancer launched a YouTube channel in 2015 to promote the music video for her first single, "Star in Your Own Life."

She gradually pivoted to sharing vlog-style content on the platform, discussing her workout routine and vacation plans with fans.

"Since I've been in school, lately, it's been hard for me to, like, keep up with my YouTube channel," Sioux told Insider. Now, the dancer posts occasional vlogs to give viewers a glimpse into her life at UCLA.

Sioux told Insider her mother managed her Instagram account on her behalf until she turned 13, the minimum age required for setting up your own account.

The dancer said that even though she's now able to control her own accounts, she often still asks her mother for her opinion on pictures or captions she intends to post.

"I'll be like, is this correct? Did I spell everything correctly? It's kind of funny how it works out because even though I could post whatever I want from the age of 13, I still reach out to her or my team about stuff."

As a teenager, Sioux said that receiving negative comments felt normal to her and came as a consequence of being a reality TV star.

"I feel like people have always thought of us as characters instead of real people. When in reality, I wasn't playing someone else, I was being myself. So the comments I got back then were sometimes awful, which is really sad because I was so young," she told Insider.

Even today, Sioux told Insider she regularly receives negative comments after posting pictures in form-fitting outfits. Users often complain that her looks are too "revealing" or "inappropriate."

"Comments do get to you at a certain point. There can be one comment that just gets under your skin," she told Insider, adding, "often I just have to decide to not care because I don't even know who the person is."

In August 2020, Sioux posted a video featuring a remixed version of La Roux's "Bulletproof" with an on-screen caption that read, "You think you can hurt my feelings? I was the only black girl on dancemoms."

The video was part of a trend on TikTok, where people used the same song and a similar caption to discuss their difficult life experiences in a lighthearted way.

Sioux posted her video after other former "Dance Moms" stars, including JoJo Siwa and Mackenzie Ziegler, also took part in the trend, captioning their videos, "You think you can hurt my feelings? I was on Dance Moms."

Sioux put a secondary caption under her video that read, "And that's on being bullied by the biggest bully in America lmao." She told Insider the comment was made about her former dance teacher on the show, Abby Lee Miller.

Both "Dance Moms" parents and viewers were critical of Miller's teaching style, and former dancer Maddie Ziegler referred to Miller's studio as a "toxic environment."

The parents of two Black dancers also accused Miller of making racist remarks.

In June 2020, Miller tweeted an apology to the "Black community" and said she wanted to "grow, and do better."

"I realize that racism can come not just from hate, but also from ignorance. No matter the cause, it is harmful, and it is my fault."

In 2017, Miller was convicted of bankruptcy fraud and failing to report money brought into the US from abroad. A federal judge sentenced her to a year and a day in prison.

Miller did not immediately respond to Insider's request for comment.

"I stand by what I said, but I also don't wish anything bad on anyone," she told Insider, saying she does not keep in touch with Miller and is "proud" that she and former co-stars spoke up for themselves.

"When we ended the show, I think we all had to take time to heal for lots of different reasons," she told Insider. "But I feel like now that we're adults, we're opening up about it on social media. And it's coming from a place of being grateful for the show but also feeling like we're able to say what we want because we're now old enough to properly realize things, and it's easier to articulate our points now than when we were all, like, 12."

In the long term, Sioux's main goal is to "just keep performing in any capacity," whether it be on stage or in videos.

"Everything comes with time, and I'm not in a rush to get loads of things done at once," Sioux said.

For now, she says, she'll keep expressing herself in social media videos and posts, despite the backlash she's received for it in the past.

"I enjoy being confident in my own skin. It took me a really long time to get here, and I'm not gonna let a few comments tear me down, because I'm out here doing what I've always dreamed of doing."

For more stories like this, check out coverage from Insider's Digital Culture team here.