Nicole Taylor’s sisters waited more than a month before telling the millions of fans who follow their country trio that the eldest triplet was gone.
Nicole Taylor, lead singer of the Nashville-based trio Taylor Red and the oldest of identical triplets by minutes, died Sept. 28, 2026, after a battle with breast cancer. She was 35. Her sisters and bandmates, Nika Taylor and Natalie Taylor, announced the death Monday, Nov. 2, in a nearly 11-minute video titled “We Lost Our Triplet Sister Nicole,” posted to YouTube and TikTok.
“We honestly thought she’d be healed here on earth, but now she’s healed in heaven,” Nika Taylor said in the video. The sisters told viewers they were still shocked, still processing, and grateful that their sister’s suffering had ended.
On a memorial posted to the band’s website, Nika and Natalie wrote that Nicole led them and was their closest friend, that she will be greatly missed, and that their heartbreak is carried by a belief they will see her again in Heaven. In the video, Natalie said Nicole was always the one who spoke on behalf of all three — the fearless leader who had her sisters’ backs and said what she thought was right.
The Lump That Felt Like a Battery
The lump she found in her breast in February 2022 felt like “a little AAA battery,” Nicole said in a 2023 interview. A mammogram and exam followed, and doctors asked her to return in six months. When she went back, she said, the lump had “doubled or tripled in size.” A biopsy confirmed the diagnosis.
The call came while the sisters were out in a public place, Natalie recalled — a nurse on the phone with the biopsy results. Natalie broke down in shock. Nicole’s first response, her sisters said, was that God was going to use this for his glory.
It was stage 3, and it was aggressive. With no breast cancer in her family, Nicole leaned on her faith and her doctors to get through it.
She Kept Doing CrossFit Through Chemo
Nicole told her family they were not going to spend the next stretch of their lives in dread, Natalie said. She kept up CrossFit between chemotherapy treatments. She responded well, and when the chemo was finished, she was told there was no evidence of disease.
Then the cancer progressed to stage 4. After a serious operation, Nicole restarted treatment. She was given a prognosis of three months. She lived another year. Her sisters said she held down two jobs, kept traveling and made time to enjoy herself, staying hopeful as the illness advanced.
From Red Roots to “Country Money”
The triplets came from Mississippi and started making music together in 2010 under the name Red Roots. Their debut album, “Red Roots,” arrived that year, followed by “The Middle of Nowhere” in 2012 and “Triplicity” in 2014. Eight years after they began, in 2018, they renamed the band Taylor Red, eventually settling in Nashville, Tenn.
The audience arrived in a rush after their song “Country Money” went viral on social media in 2021. Their YouTube channel now has 16.7 million subscribers, built on jokey videos and the chemistry of three women who look alike and sing together. They also turned up in a series of humorous commercials for the Sonic fast food chain.
Nicole sang lead, and the sisters played banjo, guitar, fiddle and mandolin.
On March 19, 2025, the three appeared together at “Opry 100: A Live Celebration” at the Ryman Auditorium in Nashville.
A Birthday Turned Into a Daily Prayer
Three days after Nicole learned she had cancer, her aunt started a prayer team that prayed for her every day at 3:18 p.m. The triplets were born on March 18, 1991.
The family has held a private funeral service. A page dedicated to Nicole lists the charities she loved, for anyone who wants to give in her name.
“I definitely believe God has worked miracles through this,” she said in the 2023 interview.
