Nia didn’t imagine at the time, she wrote, that the network would take advantage of the clause “that extended the term to seven seasons—the longest time you can contract someone for work in this business—if the series was picked up.”

Years in, the UCLA grad revealed, she had to listen to Abby “gloat sometimes that she was being paid $20,000 an episode.” Meanwhile, wrote Nia, “We were working overtime and not making half of that. I wouldn’t even be able to pay for college tuition with what I’d made from Dance Moms.”

Not that the discrepancy had her saving tears for her pillow.

Nor does she harp on the fact that when she got a raise ahead of the seventh and final season, the network bumped up her costars as well.

“I can’t pretend that I wasn’t upset,” wrote Nia, who’d watched all her fellow day ones exit stage left by that point. “I was the only OG left. My seniority and dedication to the show throughout the years should have resulted in a certain level of respect.”