I WAS ROOTING FOR YOU!!! WE WERE ALL ROOTING FOR YOU!!! HOW DARE YOU???
SOS I'm calling an emergency meeting following Nicole Scherzinger's swift and tragic career suicide.
Alright, everyone settle down, please take your seats. I call this meeting to order. We’re here today to discuss former Pussycat Doll (notoriously the only Pussycat Doll) and current Norma Desmond, the It Girl of the New York Halloween scene, Nicole Scherzinger.
Nicole is making her Broadway debut in Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Sunset Blvd. following her London run in the show, and previously playing Grizabella in the London revival of Cats, though not joining that production for its Broadway transfer and being replaced by fellow pop star who failed to successfully make it out of 2008, Leona Lewis. So, yes, she’s aligned herself pretty closely with ALW… This should have been clue number one, but we chose to look past it because, as I can now attest, she kind of slaaayed in this role. Like, I left the St. James Theatre Wednesday evening and texted my friends that she might be in the top five living entertainers. She won the Olivier and she had been thrust to the top of Tony pundits’ predictions, despite having to go toe-to-toe with six-time winner Audra McDonald. Plus, the image of her covered in blood signing Playbills became such an instantly-recognizable bit of Broadway iconography the likes of which we have not seen since Evan Hansen. She really had it all and was primed to finally get her flowers from a community that, unlike pop music, historically touts itself on recognizing and awarding true talent which she undeniable has.
But as a wise woman once said, “it’s a knife when you’re finally on top ‘cause logically the next step is they want to see you fall to the bottom”. And Nicole took a tumble yesterday!!!
Yes unfortunately we have to talk a little bit about politics which I really did not want to have to do this week but alas… she made me! Nicole seemingly outed herself as a Trump supporter AFTER the election, when she had no influence, AND she did it while gainfully employed! Like, at least wait until you’re irrelevant like Laura Osnes or box office poison like Zachary Levi. Now, you might say, maybe she just loves Jesus! And maybe she did not really get the parallels with the hat and the Trump hat! And also maybe the red heart was just a red heart! Red is sort of big for her right now. Well, when the floodgate opens…
When Pop Tingz tweets about you “coming out as a Trump supporter” and every reply is calling you a flop or a khia, you’re cooked. She has since deleted the comment, but the damage has been done, she opened PaNorma’s Box, and I think the community has pretty immediately turned on her. I’ve seen people calling for her to be replaced which is most certainly not going to happen. Or at least I wouldn’t jump to that conclusion just yet. She’s going to have to say something; either she’ll play this off as innocent misuse of social media and say that she does not stand for hate or some kind of platitude like that, or she can… say she voted for Trump, in which case I’d be more ready to believe she’d be let out of her contract early. In that case, as many have pointed out, she’d be free to sing “As If We Never Said Goodbye” at the inauguration (Trump famously loves “Memory”… a rare instance of good taste). I think the odds are even, but… I’m kind of leaning toward her embracing Trump and the producers hoping that people can forgive and forget in order to see true talent and a production that was praised even outside of Scherzinger’s performance. After all, Lea Michele was a boon for Funny Girl.
The girls are being MESSY this season, while LEADING BROADWAY SHOWS! Nicole just wanted a bite of Sutton Foster’s nachos after her recent divorce, rumored to be in service of an affair with Hugh Jackman (though I speculate she’s simply hagging out while he’s fagging out… I can say this). Audra, just stay in your lane and you’ll have one Tony for every day of the week.
Meeting adjourned.
PaNorma’s box — brilliant