Nicole Taylor of country trio Taylor Red has died at 35 after a years-long breast cancer fight her sisters say she met with faith, not fear.
ABC News reported that Nicole Taylor, one-third of the country group Taylor Red, died Sept. 28, 2026, according to a statement her sisters posted on the group’s official website.
She was 35. Her family held a private funeral service. Her triplet sisters, Nika and Natalie Taylor, later shared an Instagram video describing her long illness, her work ethic, and the Christian hope they say carried her through it.
Nicole was born March 18, 1991. With Nika and Natalie she formed the group Red Roots in 2010, released albums in 2011, 2012, and 2014, signed with Inpop Records in 2015, and took the name Taylor Red. The act later released the track “Country Money” in 2021. A file photo shows the three sisters arriving together at the Grand Ole Opry House in Nashville on March 19, 2025, for an Opry centennial celebration.
Nika and Natalie said their older sister was diagnosed in 2022 with an aggressive form of breast cancer. They said she first responded well to chemotherapy and was told there was “evidence without disease,” then later learned the cancer had progressed to Stage 4.
After a more serious diagnosis, Nicole asked doctors for a timeline. Nika recounted what they heard next.
Nika Taylor said in the sisters’ Instagram video:
"...After she asked the doctors her prognosis, [they said] it was around three months. And if the treatments worked, they didn’t know how long [she had] after that,"
The sisters said she lived about another year after that three-month outlook. They described a woman who kept moving.
Nika Taylor also said:
"She even did CrossFit while she was doing her [chemotherapy] treatments,"
Natalie painted the same picture of grit mixed with ordinary joy.
Natalie Taylor said:
"She tried not to live in fear, remained really hopeful, traveled, she tried to live life, she worked really hard, she tried to have fun,"
According to her sisters, Nicole told loved ones she would not let the disease own the family’s spirit. They said she battled “fearlessly” and told them, “We’re not going to live in dread during all of this.”
When the hard prognosis landed, Natalie recalled Nicole’s reply: “Everybody’s gonna face judgment, and I’m ready to.”
That line sits at the center of how her sisters want her remembered, not as a victim of a timeline, but as a believer who kept working, traveling, and showing up while treatment ran its course.
Even after years of treatment and a clear medical warning, Nika said the end still stunned them.
Nika Taylor said:
"We are still shocked and didn’t think this would happen,"
She did not leave the thought there. In the same video she added that her sister is no longer in pain and that the family holds to a larger promise.
Nika Taylor said:
"But we know she’s not suffering anymore, and we have God’s promise of ultimate healing."
Country music has long made room for songs about hard roads, family loyalty, and faith under pressure. Nicole Taylor’s sisters say that is how she lived the last chapter, CrossFit between chemo days, travel when she could manage it, work when she had strength, and a refusal to hand the household over to dread.
The public record from her family is still spare on place of death and formal medical wording. What they chose to put forward is clearer: a 35-year-old singer, a triplet bond that became a band, a private goodbye, and a testimony that judgment and healing were not abstract ideas to her.
In a culture quick to treat illness as pure politics or pure despair, her sisters pointed instead to grit, family, and a faith that outlasted the prognosis, and that is worth taking at their word.
