Listening to the raunchy girl band the Pussycat Dolls shouting out the lyrics 'When I grow up, I want to be famous, I want to be a star' in 2008 between vigorous butt-shakings, it is hard to imagine that their singer, Nicole Scherzinger, would might do. one day standing on the hallowed stage of the Royal Albert Hall and thanking God as she accepted the theater community's highest honor: an Olivier Award.
Certainly, Scherzinger has enjoyed his fair share of fame. However, her star has often waned in the time between that chart success and her critically acclaimed performance as faded Hollywood star Norma Desmond in this year's Andrew Lloyd Webber musical. Sunset Blvdwhich received an exciting contemporary update from director-of-the-stars Jamie Lloyd (who brought Tom Hiddleston to the stage in DeceptionEmilia Clarke in The SeagullJames McAvoy in Cyrano de Bergerac and Jessica Chastain inside A dollhouse).
In fact, Lloyd has ingeniously exploited his leading lady's apparent irrelevance in the cutthroat entertainment industry - which still, infuriatingly, tends to reject women over 30. His production played up the absurdity of anyone aging the still vital, sexy and impressive 45-year-old Scherzinger. The joke is very much on them.
It was a triumphant comeback for the pop singer and actress, culminating in an Olivier Award (one of seven wins for Sunday night's show, equaling the record of Cabaret, Hamilton And Matilda). She might even follow that up with a Tony after the production moves to Broadway this fall.
It's all a far cry from the group that made her famous - and from her humble origins. Scherzinger was born in Honolulu, Hawaii, in 1978 to a Filipino father, who left when she was two, and a Hawaiian-Ukrainian mother, an office worker. She was then adopted by her new stepfather, German-American welder Gary Scherzinger (who changed her last name from Valiente), and moved to Louisville, Kentucky at the age of six.
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Money was tight, so Scherzinger waited tables, took some local modeling gigs and even worked as a lion mascot at an amusement park - the last of which strangely turned out to be a proud moment. "It's so funny to look back at the time when I thought, 'If I could just make it in the Kentucky Kingdom, I'll make it big,'" she once said. "And I got there." Still, it wasn't exactly glamorous. "It was disgusting - so hot! - and the smell. You couldn't get enough Febreeze."
It seemed that a brilliant career in musical theater would soon follow. That was Scherzinger's major at Wright State University, and she won leading roles in regional productions of Boys and dolls, Chicago And Showboat.
Instead, in 2001, Scherzinger dropped out of college in her senior year to tour with rock band Days of the New. Her mother then saw a commercial for a new reality TV show, Pop stars USA. Scherzinger was initially reluctant to audition. "And then I thought, what the heck, if I get that gig, I'm going to LA, and I didn't have the resources to get to LA any other way."
She was duly cast and became part of the girl group Eden's Crush. They had moderate success, but soon split up when their label went bankrupt. Will.i.am invited her to join the Black Eyed Peas, but Scherzinger instead chose the burlesque group that became pop stars, the Pussycat Dolls. It was an odd choice, since her grandfather was a priest and Scherzinger maintained her strict Catholicism, attending church at least twice a week.
"Don't you wish your girlfriend was as hot as me?" grinned those scantily clad glamazons, led with intimidating froideur by the supremely confident Scherzinger. But the confidence was a mask: She has since admitted that during those Pussycat Dolls years she struggled with an eating disorder, working out at the gym several hours a day and passing out from lack of food. Her bulimia even affected her vocal cords; that "was a real awakening," and it led her to seek therapy.
Tensions also rose between Scherzinger, the Star Turn and the rest of the band. But going it alone turned out to be unwise: her debut solo album was shelved after several of its singles failed to set the charts on fire in 2007.
However, reality TV called again. Scherzinger won the 2010 season of Dancing with stars (the American equivalent of Come strictly dance), and that year she replaced Cheryl as judge The X Factor. Both Scherzinger and Simon Cowell have taken credit for putting together the band One Direction; the former said she remembers thinking, "They will be unmistakable for girls."
Scherzinger had meanwhile fallen for the British racing driver Lewis Hamilton. The couple were together for around seven years and eventually split in 2015. She is now engaged to former Scottish rugby player Thom Evans, who was by her side at the Oliviers.
In 2014, Scherzinger made a high-profile return to musical theater playing Grizabella (who sings the big earworm Memory) in the musical Cats at the London Palladium and securing an Olivier nomination.
However, she briefly had a falling out with Lloyd Webber when she rejected the subsequent Broadway transfer - which was reportedly because producers did not want to give her top billing, or because x Factor made her a better offer, although stories vary (she claimed that "the contract was never finalized"). The composer said she made him look "an absolute twosome." He added, "It doesn't matter, there will be another girl on Broadway and Nicole won't get her Tony Award."
After more reality show work (judging by The Masked Singer And Australia has talent), and a truly royal performance (singing at the 2023 coronation concert), convinced the forgiving Lloyd Webber Scherzinger to come back to the West End and play Norma Desmond in Sunset Blvd - possibly. At first she was insulted for portraying the character as much older. "This girl is crazy, she's pathetic, I'm not playing her," was her instinctive response.
Instead, it turned out to be "the role of a lifetime" - one that justified Lloyd Webber's newfound faith in her ("I believe she is one of the most talented singer-actresses I have seen perform my work... he said recently. The New York Times, "I'm a total fan") and one she can personally relate to. "I know what it is like [to be considered] not so 'relevant' or out of fashion," she explains.
It's also brought her full circle: reunited with Lloyd Webber, and finally on her way to Broadway - and maybe even a Tony.
Talk about a Hollywood ending.
