Gymnast Nia Dennis Is ‘So Grateful’ After Viral Routines ‘Changed Her Life’: ‘I’ve Always Been The Underdog’

hollywoodlife.com:

While Nia Dennis is now retired from her gymnastic days, her viral routines as a UCLA Bruin have changed her life for the years to come.

The recent grad tumbled into the 2021 Met Gala, starred in the Athleta Presents Gold Over America Tour alongside Simone Biles, and is now partnering with Pressed Juicery! “It’s been just one opportunity after the next and I honestly just feel so blessed and so grateful to be in this position,” she told HollywoodLife in an EXCLUSIVE interview. “All my life I felt like I was kind of an underdog gymnast and didn’t necessarily get the credit that I feel like I deserved, so for it to finally pay off in my last two years of gymnastics felt very surreal and felt like all the hard work that I’ve been putting in was just totally worth it.” Nia first caught the attention of the world in February 2020 when her Beyoncé-inspired floor routine at a dual meet against Utah amassed tens of millions of views online. “I wanted to feel confident and who better than to look up to them the Queen, right?” she recalled.

With her exaggerated hair flip and imaginary crown on her head, judges gave Nia a 9.975 for the floor routine and a year later, she returned with something even more revolutionary. “There were other things I wanted to incorporate in my floor routine, that included Black culture and Black styles of dance, which just wasn’t as prominent in my Beyoncé routine as it was the following year.” For her senior season, Nia wowed judges and the world once again with her ‘Black Excellence’ floor routine to music by Kendrick Lamar, Soulja Boy and Tupac.

She kicked it off paying tribute to the late Chadwick Boseman as Lamar’s “Humble” played and the gymnast hit the “Wakanda Forever” salute, before going on