Lifetime is premiering its new docuseries Raising Asia. Asia Monet Ray is a child prodigy. She’s a triple threat: actor, singer, dancer. She learned a lot at Abby Lee Miller’s dance studio on that other reality show Dance Moms. Raising Asia will follow the 8-year-old as she, her model mother Kristie, bodybuilder father Shawn and baby sister Bella Blu, make sacrifices to reach the top. What’s the top? The girl has her own TV show (Lifetime ordered 14 half-hour episodes). The top is Broadway, then Hollywood. Or vice versa.
Asia’s parents want their daughter to take the yellow brick road that Judy Garland followed. But it’s a cautionary tale. Garland famously signed her first movie contract at the age of 13, and became a huge star after The Wizard of Oz. But her life was a nightmare of addiction and despair, which she blamed on the stress put upon her as a child star.
