How Nicole Scherzinger went from Pussycat Dolls spat to bigger star than ever thanks to prestigious award & movie talks

NICOLE Scherzinger looked destined to end up on the showbiz scrapheap.

The singer and actress spent years in increasingly mundane talent show judging roles.

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Then her much-anticipated return to music with The Pussycat Dolls ended in disaster when a row with the group’s manager in 2021 derailed their comeback for good.

But on Sunday night, the sexy US star, 46, cemented a major career U-turn when she was named Best Actress In A Musical at the prestigious Tony Awards, thanks to her powerful turn as Norma Desmond in Sunset Boulevard.

Now, Nicole is the toast of Broadway thanks to her critically-acclaimed performance, and is being courted for a string of stage and screen roles — something she could not have dreamed of just a few years ago.

The star, who also won an Olivier Award for the role last year following the show’s run in London, said: “I want to do it all.

“I would like to do movies and movie musicals. I would like to build my own show. There are roles I would like to create.

“It’s validating and it’s fulfilling because I know that I’m on the right path. I know I’m back where I was born to be.

“When you see the show, you see the real depths of me as an actor and as a singer.

“I want to encourage people to keep an open mind and an open heart.

“You never know where your unexpected dream opportunity is going to come from.”

Nicole has already had talks over a movie version of Sunset Boulevard and has been approached about returning to the West End in other productions.

But at the Tony Awards ceremony in New York, where she teared up on stage, she said: “This has been a very healing process for me.

“I always felt like I wasn’t living my full potential and full purpose. I was never happy with myself.

“It is because I knew I had so much more to give. And this role and this opportunity allowed me to give all of me. It’s changed my life.

“But it has been hard. It has not been an easy road.

“I am so grateful that I am able to connect to people on a spiritual and soulful level and I could make a difference in these people’s lives.

“That is exactly what we do it for. So I am thankful.”

Nicole had a number of theatre roles as a youngster, before joining the Pussycat Dolls and scoring a string of hit records.

She went on to release two solo albums and become a judge on shows including The X Factor and The Masked Singer US.

Her role in Cats on the West End from 2014 to 2015 was a success.

But she infuriated Andrew Lloyd Webber by pulling out of the show’s US run on Broadway just a week before rehearsals were due to begin.

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He said at the time: “I mean, she’s crazy. But the American producers just took a view, ‘Well, fine, we’ll get somebody else’ because she’s actually not very well known in America. She’s much better known here.

“I’m furious because I really believe she’s the most fantastically talented girl and I went out on a limb to get her for the London Palladium here, and it makes me look like an absolute twot with them all.”

Despite their parting of ways, Nicole still credits composer Andrew with masterminding her success after he became one of her biggest supporters.

He wrote the music for Sunset Boulevard and championed her landing that role.

Thanking him in her Tonys acceptance speech, she said: “Andrew Lloyd Webber, it’s happened. It’s been such an honour to create with you.”

Nicole’s musical career has been a rollercoaster in recent years. In 2019, The Pussycat Dolls announced they were reuniting for a UK arena tour and new music. Their first single, React, broke the Top 40.

This has been 30 years in the making and I’ve been working and fighting for this my whole life.

Nicole Scherzinger

It seemed like things were finally on the up, but Covid repeatedly delayed their tour and, by 2022, the trek was axed amid a legal row between Nicole and the group’s founder, Robin Antin.

Those mainstream career choices put paid to her ambitions on stage and screen, and she has now said she felt blacklisted from the industry.

Opening up about her years-long battle to be taken seriously, Nicole explained: “Like so many people, I was put in a box.

“It is hard when you feel like, your whole career, you’ve been fighting to be seen and fighting to show what you’re truly capable of.

“Ten years back after The Dolls, I really wanted to go back to doing musical theatre stuff. It’s like where my heart is.

"And there was no path to do that. People weren’t even allowing me to be seen for filmed musicals and some live stuff going on.

“They just wouldn’t even consider seeing me, like ‘That’s going to be a waste of our time’. I was like, ‘They’re not taking me seriously’.”

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But when forward-thinking theatre producer Jamie Lloyd, 45, eventually approached her with the life-changing role of Norma Desmond, her first reaction was to feel insulted.

The show, which also won Best Revival Of A Musical at the Tonys, tells the story of a faded and deluded 50-year-old film star who refuses to accept her streak of fame is over.

She then hires a screenwriter to help write a movie to relaunch her career, although it doesn’t go to plan and the production culminates with Nicole covered in blood on stage.

In a 2023 interview, recalling her reaction to being offered the part, the star said: “I was like, ‘Are you out of your mind?’. First of all, I still look great under bright lights.

"And isn’t that an older woman who is, like, an old relic? How does that even remotely have anything to do with me?’.

“I was, like, ‘Yo, this chick is crazy. I don’t want to play her. She crazy’.”

Before taking the part, Nicole had been working on relaunching her solo music career, although massive acting roles now beckon instead.

She said: “This is my childhood dream come true. I feel like I win every night when people tell me how my performances impact them.

“This has been 30 years in the making and I’ve been working and fighting for this my whole life.

"I cannot believe I won a Tony against an unbelievable category of (women). But I have come home (Broadway) and am back where I was born to be.”

By her side throughout her career redemption has been former rugby player Thom Evans, who she met when he competed on The X Factor: Celebrity in 2019.

They got engaged in 2023 and she thanked him on stage during her speech.

She said: “For my fiance Thom, who believes in me, when I forget to believe in myself.”

But her newfound popularity may mean an even longer wait is in store for their nuptials.

Asked last week if they would be tying the knot soon, Nicole said: “Yes, we will get married.

“We’re engaged to be married when I’m not working. Thank God he is so patient. We’ll get married back home in Hawaii, where my family is from.”

It clearly hasn’t been easy on either of them to have Nicole doing eight shows a week for most of the last two years, as she has changed her life for the part.

In an interview with Sirius XM in the States, she said: “I live like a hermit. I try not to do much.

“I still take my meetings and do work that I have to do and wherever they need me.

“I feel like every performance, I leave my soul and my voice out there on the stage.

“So I kind of live like a hermit. I don’t really do much. I just drink a lot of water.”

She added: “I train like an Olympian. Before I go on stage, it’s like I am a boxer and that is the level I have to get emotionally and physically ready.

“I train myself like a weapon. We are warriors.”