Nicole Taylor of Country Trio Taylor Red Dies at 35
Nicole Taylor, the eldest of the triplet sisters behind country trio Taylor Red, died at her Nashville home after a long fight with breast cancer. She was 35.
NASHVILLE — Nicole Taylor, one third of the country trio Taylor Red, has died at her home in Nashville after a long fight with breast cancer. She was 35.
Her triplet sisters and bandmates, Nika and Natalie Taylor, shared the news in a video posted on November 2, revealing that Nicole had died on September 28. The family had kept the loss private for more than a month.
“We are heartbroken to announce the passing of our sister Nicole Taylor,” Nika said in the video. “We honestly thought she’d be healed here on earth, but now she’s healed in heaven.”
From Red Roots to Taylor Red
The three sisters grew up in southern Mississippi and began performing together in 2010 under the name Red Roots. They released three albums before rebranding as Taylor Red in 2018.
Their sound leaned on tight, sibling harmonies, and all three were multi-instrumentalists, trading between guitar, banjo, fiddle and mandolin on stage. “Country Money,” released in 2021, became one of the group’s best-known songs.
Social media gave the trio a second wind. Clips of the sisters performing in sync, covering familiar songs and trading comedy sketches drew millions of followers across TikTok and YouTube. Taylor Red was often cited among the country and pop acts that used short-form video to build a following outside the traditional music-industry pipeline.
For fans who discovered them through a phone screen, the sisters’ closeness was as much a part of the appeal as the music itself. That bond is what makes Nicole’s absence so stark.
A diagnosis she refused to let define her
Nicole was diagnosed with aggressive stage 3 breast cancer in 2022. She responded well to chemotherapy and was at one point declared to show no evidence of disease. The cancer later returned and spread, reaching stage 4.
Natalie said her sister was determined not to live in fear. Throughout her illness Nicole kept travelling, working, exercising and making time for fun. She even kept up CrossFit workouts while undergoing chemotherapy, Natalie recalled.
Doctors had given her around three months to live after the stage 4 diagnosis. She lived for another year, holding on to the routines and the people she loved.
Nicole was the eldest of the triplets — by a matter of minutes. In a tribute posted on the group’s website, Nika and Natalie described her as “our leader and our best friend.”
Private farewell, public tribute
The family has already held a private funeral. In place of flowers, the sisters have asked fans to make donations in Nicole’s name to Samaritan’s Purse, one of her favourite charities.
For a group whose identity was built on three voices singing as one, the loss lands at the very heart of the act. Nika and Natalie closed their message the way they had described her all along.
“She was our leader and our best friend,” they wrote.
