Nicole Scherzinger Biography

news-detailsNicole Scherzinger became a household name after she became the only remaining member of The Pussycat Dolls. She was born Nicole Prescovia Elikolani Valiente Scherzinger on June 29, 1978 in Honolulu, Hawaii. Her father is Filipino while her mother is half Hawaiian and half Russian. The parents were young when they had Nicole, and they separated when she was still a baby.

Mom took Nicole to live in Louisville, Kentucky with sister Ke'ala and stepfather Gary Scherzinger, from whom she adopted her last name. Like a lot of Americans, Nicole had little money to live but her mother supported her to become an artist. Nicole enrolled at Youth Performing Arts School at duPont Manual High School and later majored in acting and musical theater at Wright State University.

Her singing career took off when she was employed as the backing vocalist of rock band Days of the New. In an attempt to be seen, Nicole joined The WB's "Popstars" in 2001 and earned a spot in an all-girl group called Eden's Crush. The band experienced a success with the single "Get Over Yourself (Goodbye)". It entered the top ten on Billboard Hot 100 chart.

As she began to enjoy limelight, offers came from every corner including Black Eyed Peas. Nicole could have been in Stacy Ferguson aka Fergie's position today had she not got tied to the contract with Eden's Crush. Unfortunately, as the offer passed, Eden's Crush disbanded when the record company went bankrupt. She was then thinking of going solo by employing the stage name Nicole Kea but it did not work out as well as expected.

The opportunity came in 2003 when she was cast as one of the members in burlesque troupe called Pussycat Dolls. Along with five other girls, they recorded "Sway" as their first single and from there, it was all downhill. However, too many heads proved to be too much for the group with Nicole saying it was a "challenge fronting the group". Nicole, who was criticized of dominating the group, began doing solo projects such as lending vocals to P. Diddy and Shaggy.

While still in Pussycat Dolls, Nicole worked on a solo debut album which was titled "Her Name Is Nicole". She worked with some renowned producers such as Sean Garrett and Polow da Don and nabbed collaboration with T.I. Not as stellar as the team, the album unfortunately experienced a lot of pushbacks since its first commence in 2007. The lead single "Whatever You Like" was unsuccessful in charts and so was the second single "Baby Love". In the next few months, her label kept pushing the promos with two other singles "Supervillain" and "Puakenikeni" which again failed to chart.

In 2007, Nicole began dating 2008 Formula One World Champion Lewis Hamilton. They took a break for a while in 2010 and Nicole poured her emotion to her album. "The whole album is going to be a pressure release - a great big exhale - and I'm happy about that. She has a lot of emotions after splitting up with Lewis. But it's like taking an eagle and giving it back its wings," Ne-Yo said.

As for her solo album which was yet to see the light of day, Nicole said in September 2008, "Despite what other people might write, it was my decision, ultimately. I actually put some of my solo songs on the Pussycat Dolls' new album Doll Domination. Everything is all about timing. I believe it will come out next year, and it will be able to coexist wonderfully with the Dolls' album. ...That's what happens when you're a perfectionist."

Work on Pussycat Dolls was still going on. The group's second studio album "Doll Domination" was released in September 2008 and debuted at number 4 on Hot 200. The album experienced further success when its repackaged versions feature "Jai Ho! (You Are My Destiny)" from "Slumdog Millionaire".

It was after this year that a lot of bad rumors about the group emerged. In the first half of 2010 the other members of the group began spilling the truth about Nicole being more preferred than the others. By mid year, Nicole became the only standing member. But creator Robert Antin confirmed that she would do auditions to find new girls in order to replace the departed members.

While all of this was going on, Nicole did not spend her time being stale. She assisted other artists such as Ne-Yo and Timbaland with their singles. Then she took past in the season 10 of "Dancing with the Stars" where she became the winner. She also joined Neil Patrick Harris' production of musical stage "Rent" where she played Maureen. The remainder of the year was spent with judging singing competition shows like "The X Factor" and "The Sing-Off".

Her new single "Poison" came out in October 2010 as the first single from the album which has been retitled "Killer Love". The second single "Don't Hold Your Breath" was dropped March 13, 2011 just a few days before the album's U.S. release.