Nicole Taylor, who sang with her identical triplet sisters in the country band Taylor Red, died Sept. 28. She was 35.
Natalie and Nika Taylor announced their sister's death on their social media platforms on Nov. 2. They shared that Nicole was diagnosed with stage 3 breast cancer in 2022. She responded to treatment at first, but the cancer later progressed to stage 4.
In an emotional video posted on Instagram, the sisters shared how they "honestly thought she'd be healed here on earth" before going into detail about their sister's journey with cancer.
"She fought it fearlessly and she said we're not going to live in dread during all of this," the sister's said. "She even did CrossFit while she was doing her chemo treatments."
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The sisters detailed how her cancer progressed despite initially responding well to the treatments. Eventually, the doctors gave her a prognosis of three months. She lived for another year.
"She tried not to live in fear. She remained really hopeful and traveled. She tried to have fun," the sisters recalled. "We are still shocked and didn't think this would happen, but we know she's not suffering anymore and we have God's promise of ultimate healing," the sisters said as they concluded their announcement.
Nicole spoke publicly about how her family helped her through treatment. Her mother and sisters took her to chemotherapy, and her brother worked out with her several times a week, she said in an earlier video about her diagnosis.
"She was our leader and our best friend. We are heartbroken, but we know she is in Heaven and will see her again," Natalie and Nika Taylor wrote in a tribute on the band's website.
Taylor Red thanks TikTok for their country success
Some of the sisters' earliest gigs were at fish fries in their Mississippi hometown. Their mother encouraged them to sing together, and their parents carried their instruments and drove them to shows.
"Soon, we were playing 100 dates a year," Nicole Taylor told People in 2021.
During the pandemic the sisters decided to make a TikTok account, and their success snowballed from there, growing to 13.4 million followers.
"Over the past year, TikTok changed our world," Nika Taylor explained. "It knocked down a lot of doors in an industry we had spent years knocking on."
Their single "Country Money" drew millions of views on the platform, according to the band's website.
The family held a private funeral and shared a memorial page for Samaritan's Purse, one of Nicole's favorite charities.
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Nicole Taylor of country trio Taylor Red dead at 35
