Country singer Nicole Taylor — one third of the triplet act Taylor Red — died on September 28 after being diagnosed with stage 4 breast cancer. She was 35. Her triplet sisters, Nika and Natalie Taylor, announced her death on November 2.
Nicole Taylor was first diagnosed with breast cancer four years ago after noticing a lump in her breast that she said felt “like a triple-A battery.” Breast cancer diagnoses among women younger than 45 have been on the rise over the past decade, says University of Colorado Anschutz Cancer Center member Virginia Borges, MD, MMSc, director of the Young Women's Breast Cancer Translational Program. The cause of the increase is still unknown.
“In the United States, it is estimated that in 2026 there will be 36,000 cases of women who get diagnosed under the age of 45,” Borges says. “Historically, breast cancer in 20-year-olds and early 30-year-olds were quite uncommon, but in the last decade or more, we're seeing this increasing trend, so much so that the rate of breast cancer in women under 45 is rising faster in the United States than breast cancer in women of more average age for breast cancer.”
Awareness is key
Taylor said in a 2023 interview that after she noticed the lump and brought it to the attention of her health care provider, she got a breast exam and a mammogram and was told to keep an eye on the lump and come back in six months. Because of her age and the lack of a breast cancer history in her family, she wasn’t as concerned about the lump being cancerous. But Borges says younger women need to be aware that they are at risk for breast cancer, even without a family history.
“Young women need to be aware of the increasing incidence of breast cancer in their age range," she says. "Young women are busy. They're figuring out school, work, or relationships, maybe starting their family. This young woman was obviously a successful singer with her sisters, and breast cancer might not have been on her radar.
“What I see in my clinic is too predictable. Young women are too young to undergo routine screening, and there can often be a delay between their first symptoms and getting a medical workup, so have a lot of women who have very advanced-stage diagnosis, stage3 or stage 4, and that just gives them less of a chance.”
Aggressive subtype
Taylor’s lump continued to grow, and she was diagnosed with stage 3 breast cancer, meaning the cancer had spread to lymph nodes around the breast. She received six months of chemotherapy and was given the status “no evidence of disease,” but nine months later the cancer returned as stage 4 — meaning it had spread to other sites in her body — and she was given just months to live.
“Some forms of breast cancer are infinitely more treatable, and even curable, at stage 3 or higher, and we don't know all the details about this young woman's cancer journey,” Borges says. “Given the way her cancer returned aggressively in a short timeline, and the fact that she did not survive having metastatic breast cancer for long, it was likely a more aggressive subtype of breast cancer. And those subtypes are more common in young women, so it's a double whammy.”
Room for hope
Borges says it’s also important for young women to know that Taylor’s cancer experience was different than what many young women with breast cancer go through.
“That is not what most young women dealing with breast cancer, even metastatic advanced breast cancer, would experience, because we have a lot of excellent therapies,” she says. “If a woman is diagnosed with stage 1 to stage 3 breast cancer, we're treating them with curative intent, and we give them a battery of treatments depending on the subtype of breast cancer.”
Those treatments include chemotherapy, immunotherapy, targeted drugs, endocrine therapy, surgery, and radiation, depending on the exact cancer scenario. “Then we would hope that person is cured, and we follow them in their survivorship,” Borges says. “If the cancer comes back very quickly after they have gone through all that treatment, that's not the best sign.”
Lessons from Nicole
Young women who have questions or concerns after reading about Taylor’s cancer experience should know that it’s important to let their health care provider know about any changes to their breasts, Borges says, and it’s also important that they know their family cancer history on their mother’s and father’s side.
Women at average risk for breast cancer are advised to start yearly mammograms at age 40, but women with a family history or other risk factors often start the screenings even earlier, Borges says. She commends Nicole Taylor and her sisters for using her cancer experience and death to help raise awareness about the rise of breast cancer incidence in women under 45.
“I give Nicole and her sisters tremendous credit for being willing to share this information with the rest of the world,” she says. “There was a time not very long ago, maybe a generation before me, where that would never have been made public. When you have somebody who's literally a rock star being willing to share her experience, and then her sisters speaking out after her death so that women out there are more educated about this and realize this can happen — I think that's just amazing.”
Featured image: Nicole Taylor, left, with her triplet sisters Nika and Natalie Taylor.
