The Pussycat Dolls

• 1. Introduction

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  The Pussycat Dolls, an American girl group founded in Los Angeles, sold 55 million records worldwide. Yet one Entertainment Weekly critic, reviewing their second album, asked a question that stuck to them for years: "can you name them? Do you even know how many there are?" The group began as a dance act and grew into a pop franchise, and that origin left a puzzle at its center. Who actually sang on those records? Why did the group fall apart so soon after its biggest hits? And how did a long-awaited comeback end up in a courtroom instead of on a stage?

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• 2. Lingerie and Standards

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  Robin Antin first sketched out a modern burlesque troupe in 1990, with Carla Kama and Christina Applegate among the performers. By 1995 the troupe was on stage, dancing to popular standards from the 1950s and 1960s in lingerie or old-fashioned pin-up costumes. A Thursday night slot at the Viper Room, a Los Angeles nightclub, kept them busy from 1995 until 2001.

  Two 1998 films, Matters of Consequence and The Treat, gave the troupe its first brief moments on screen. The Treat was directed by Jonathan Gems. Through all of this, from 1995 to 2003, guest vocalists rotated through and the dancers kept changing.

  Playboy raised the stakes in June 1999 with a pictorial of at least seven then-current members posing semi-nude, including Kasey Campbell, Kiva Dawson and Erica Gudis. Three years later the troupe moved to the Roxy Theatre in West Hollywood. Magazines, MTV and VH1 television specials, ad campaigns and films followed. In 2003, some of the dolls danced to Henry Mancini's The Pink Panther Theme in Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle, and they also appeared in Pink's Trouble video.

  Carmen Electra, the lead performer in many of their shows, posed with Applegate and Christina Aguilera in a 2002 Maxim shoot that raised public interest further. Aguilera later appeared in Burlesque, a 2010 film directed by Antin's brother Steve. In November 2002 the dolls danced with Electra on the Late Show with David Letterman, while Staci Flood sang Big Spender. In 2003 they shared the MTV Movie Awards stage with t.A.T.u. during All the Things She Said.

  When Interscope Geffen A&M Records took an interest, Electra opted out. She said she had spent more than two years with the troupe and done every show, but could not afford to join the new music project. In her words, it was "a sacrifice I couldn't make." Seven people survived the recasting that followed: Antin, Carmit Bachar, Cyia Batten, Kasey Campbell, Ashley Roberts, Jessica Sutta and Kimberly Wyatt.

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• 3. Building the Brand

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  In 2003, Antin struck a joint venture with Interscope Records to turn the Pussycat Dolls into a brand. Jimmy Iovine, whose label Interscope was, had suggested taking the troupe mainstream. He assigned the project to producer Ron Fair.

  Auditions in 2003 sought singers for a separate group that would include no celebrity members. Nicole Scherzinger, Melody Thornton and Kaya Jones were recruited and joined the surviving dancers. In February 2004 the new recording act performed Big Spender live at the MTV Asia Awards. Later that year they recorded We Went as Far as We Felt Like Going for the Shark Tale soundtrack, along with a version of Sway that appeared in the film Shall We Dance?

  At VH1 Divas 2004, they briefly reunited with Electra for Tainted Love. They then performed You Can Leave Your Hat On with Tom Jones, and joined Patti LaBelle for a finale of New Attitude. Kaya Jones left in September 2004, and Batten and Campbell left in January 2005. After that, Antin moved into a strictly managerial and creative role.

  PCD arrived in September 2005 and sold three million copies in the United States. Its lead single, Don't Cha, topped the charts in various countries and reached number two on the Billboard Hot 100. Stickwitu gave the group a second number one in the UK and New Zealand, reached number five in the US, and earned a Grammy nomination for Best Pop Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocal. Beep hit number one in Belgium and New Zealand, number two in the UK and number thirteen in the US. By the end of 2006, PCD sat at number twelve on the Billboard 200 year-end chart.

  ABC chose the group to open its coverage of the NBA. They first toured North America as openers on the Black Eyed Peas' Honda Civic Tour. A remix of Buttons featuring Snoop Dogg reached number three on the Hot 100 and the top five elsewhere. On the PCD World Tour, Rihanna opened the UK dates, and one show was streamed through MSN Music.

  The tour stop in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, brought trouble with the authorities over what was judged sexually explicit dancing. The company behind the appearance, Absolute Entertainment, was fined $3000. Two last singles closed out the album's run. I Don't Need a Man was a moderate success, and Wait a Minute became the group's fifth top 40 single on the Hot 100.

  From February to May 2007, the group toured North America with Danity Kane on Christina Aguilera's Back to Basics Tour. The success of PCD also produced a CW reality series, Pussycat Dolls Present: The Search for the Next Doll, meant to find a seventh member. Asia Nitollano was named the winner on the 24th of April, but months later it emerged that she had quit shortly after the finale aired. After Live Earth, the group slowed to occasional one-off shows and went on hiatus in mid-2007. Scherzinger tried a solo career, but her planned album Her Name Is Nicole was shelved after four singles failed to make an impact. In August 2007, Sutta appeared on Paul van Dyk's White Lies, which topped the US Billboard Hot Dance Singles chart.

  PCD has sold over 1,246,769 copies in the United Kingdom, the best-selling release there by an American girl group. Don't Cha sold more than 3 million copies in the United States, making it the best-selling song by a female group there, and 6 million worldwide. Buttons passed two million downloads, so the Pussycat Dolls became the first all-female group in digital history with three singles above that mark. With only two studio albums, they ranked as the fourth best-selling girl group of all time. The third of those two-million sellers, When I Grow Up, belonged to the second album, still three years away.

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• 4. Who Was Singing

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  Ron Fair, the producer shaping the new group, was blunt about the original dancers. He conceded that "there were some adequate voices in the original group." Even so, he said, Scherzinger and Thornton were needed "to bring the ability." They were the only two hired specifically as singers when the troupe became a pop act in 2003, though Bachar also sang on the first album.

  At the 2004 MTV Asia Awards, Thornton took the sole lead vocal for the group's first performance as a music act. Scherzinger eventually took most of the vocals on the records. In a Behind the Music special about her career, she said she sang both lead and backing vocals on both studio albums, with hardly anything sung by the others. She added that the other members did not even hear the tracks until they were finished, and said she did not want to get in trouble for saying so.

  The Telegraph's Adam White called the Pussycat Dolls "pop's most embittered group" and described the other members as "glorified back-up dancers." He said their 2006 performance at the American Music Awards "appeared to prove all was not well within the group's dynamic."

  Roberts told The Independent in 2014 that the members were always told it was Nicole's project. She compared the others to a football team and Scherzinger to its quarterback. They were not allowed to talk in interviews, she said, and sometimes were not even allowed in the studio. Wyatt said in 2009 that Scherzinger had been the leader in every video and stage performance, and that she herself was not seen the way she had hoped.

  Thornton told Vibe that she got into the group to sing, and that she also writes. Roles shrank, she said, until the message on the road was "Y'all play your part and this is what it is." Kaya Jones, who had auditioned as a vocalist, described Scherzinger as someone who always wanted the spotlight. Even so, she called it "a bit farfetched" to describe the other women as "window dressings," and said every member was talented.

  Years later, once the five had reunited, Bachar insisted that the earlier split was not bitter. Everyone had simply wanted to do their own thing, she said, and she had gone off and started a family. Roberts said the band was built around Nicole as lead singer, with each member adding something, like pieces of a puzzle. Scherzinger said she took centre stage by mutual agreement. Wyatt added that the others do get chances to record vocals, and that whenever she gets one, she is "so grateful."

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• 5. Doll Domination

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  In March 2008, Carmit Bachar announced on the group's website that she was leaving to pursue a solo career. She was the longest-serving member at that point, and she cited tensions in the group and feeling underappreciated. On the 10th of March, the remaining five gave their first performance as a quintet, at the Operation MySpace concert for US troops in Kuwait and at Antin's Los Angeles Fashion Week show.

  Doll Domination arrived in September 2008 to mixed reviews. It peaked at number four on both the UK Albums Chart and the Billboard 200, yet is still regarded as a commercial disappointment. To cut costs, it reused reworked tracks from Scherzinger's cancelled solo project, including the lead single When I Grow Up, which peaked at number nine on the Hot 100. Its video earned six MTV Video Music Awards nominations, the most that year, and won Best Dancing in a Video. Three more singles came out in 2008: Whatcha Think About That, Out of This Club and I Hate This Part, which reached number eleven.

  The Doll Domination Tour began in January 2009 and grossed over $14 million. Between legs, the group also supported Britney Spears on the North American dates of her Circus Tour. While they were in Europe, Scherzinger was asked to rewrite a pop version of Jai Ho, from the 2008 film Slumdog Millionaire. The result, Jai Ho! (You Are My Destiny), credited her as a featured artist. That caused strife in the group, including a public outburst from Thornton at one appearance on the tour. The song debuted at number 100 on the Hot 100 and climbed to number 15 the next week, one of the biggest single-week jumps ever recorded.

  In May 2009, Jessica Sutta hurt her back during the first Sydney show, and the group performed as a foursome for the shows that followed. With sales stagnant, Doll Domination was reissued, and in the UK an EP called The Mini Collection came out. Bottle Pop and Hush Hush; Hush Hush became their fifth and sixth consecutive number ones on the US Hot Dance/Club Songs chart.

  After the tour ended, Antin acknowledged that new members would be joining Scherzinger. By February 2010, Sutta, Roberts, Wyatt and Thornton had each announced their departures, and Wyatt later said that "the group has fully disbanded." In May 2010, four new members stood around Scherzinger, but she left before the year ended to go solo.

  Scherzinger's solo years were busy. In March 2010 she was announced as a contestant on the tenth season of Dancing with the Stars, partnered with Derek Hough, and she won. Her debut album, Killer Love, came out in March 2011. In May 2011 she became a judge on the first American season of The X Factor, alongside Simon Cowell, Paula Abdul and L.A. Reid. She later joined The X Factor UK as its fourth permanent judge for the ninth series.

  Theatre brought her the loudest praise. As Norma Desmond in the 2023 revival of Sunset Boulevard at the Savoy Theatre, she won the 2023 Evening Standard Theatre Award for Best Musical Performance and the 2024 Laurence Olivier Award for Best Actress in a Musical. Matt Wolf of The New York Times called the performance "career-defining." In 2024 she made her Broadway debut in the same role at the St. James Theatre, and later won the Tony Award for Best Actress in a Musical.

  The other Dolls found their own paths. Jessica Sutta signed to Hollywood Records in June 2011, and her first single, Show Me, reached number one on the US Hot Dance Club Songs chart. In November 2012, Ashley Roberts was confirmed for the twelfth series of I'm a Celebrity...Get Me Out of Here! and later joined the ice panel of Dancing on Ice. Kimberly Wyatt was featured on Aggro Santos's Candy, a UK top five hit in 2011. Carmit Bachar teamed up with musician Sammy Jay as the electronic duo LadyStation, and they released the EP Voices in 2015.

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• 6. Dolls on Every Shelf

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  Asphalt: Urban GT 2, released in November 2005, put the group inside a racing game, and reviewers dismissed their presence as a marketing gimmick. In The Sims 2: Pets, Don't Cha was re-recorded in Simlish under the title Do Ba.

  A 2006 merchandising agreement with Interscope led the toy maker Hasbro to plan a line of dolls modeled on the group, reportedly aimed at children aged six to nine. Two organizations, Dads and Daughters and the Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood, lobbied against it. They argued that the group's songs, videos and performances were overtly sexual. Hasbro scrapped the plan.

  Also in 2006, Interscope negotiated a deal with Estée Lauder for a Pussycat Dolls cosmetics line under the Stila brand. In 2008, Antin and the La Senza Corporation produced a burlesque-styled lingerie line called "Shhh...by Robin Antin." On the 15th of December 2008, Antin released Robin Antin's Pussycat Dolls Workout. It featured dancers from the Pussycat Doll Lounge Review, including Chrystina Sayers of Girlicious, as well as Scherzinger.

  At Caesars Palace in Las Vegas, the Pussycat Dolls Lounge ran a resident live show until the venue closed in February 2015. Dancers performed in a rhinestone-encrusted bathtub and on raised platforms. Dealers at the blackjack and roulette tables wore Pussycat Dolls-inspired outfits.

  The Pussycat Dolls Present: Girlicious premiered on The CW on the 18th of February 2008 as a reality competition to form a new all-female pop group. Its second season was aimed at finding women for a three-member group, Girlicious. Interscope also formed a London-based spin-off group, Paradiso Girls, through an open audition. In 2010 they were dropped, and promotion of their planned debut album, Crazy Horse, was cancelled.

  Throughout 2011 and 2012, Antin spoke of casting new members for the Pussycat Dolls. A 2011 line-up that included Lauren Bennett, Chrystina Sayers, Paula van Oppen, Vanessa Curry and Dallas Cowboys Cheerleader Erica Kiehl Jenkins appeared in a GoDaddy commercial during Super Bowl XLVI. In February 2013, Antin announced that she had scrapped the replacement plan and would form a "next generation" group instead. They became known as G.R.L., and their debut single, Vacation, came out on the 16th of June as a B-side to Britney Spears's Ooh La La.

  In 2015, G.R.L. disbanded nine months after member Simone Battle died by suicide following a battle with depression. The group returned as a trio in 2016.

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• 7. Reunion and Lawsuit

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  In November 2019, Bachar, Roberts, Scherzinger, Sutta and Wyatt announced a reunion and a tour planned for April 2020. Thornton declined to rejoin, saying she wanted to focus on solo projects. The announcement was preceded by Scherzinger buying part of the rights from Antin.

  Their first appearance back was a medley of old singles plus a new song, React, on the finale of The X Factor: Celebrity. In January 2020 they were featured on Meghan Trainor's Genetics, from her album Treat Myself. React followed in February 2020 through Access Records. It was their first independent single and their first new release in more than a decade, and it became their eleventh top-forty single on the UK Singles Chart. In March 2020, the pandemic forced the tour to be postponed.

  In September 2021, Antin sued Scherzinger. Filings at the Los Angeles Superior Court pointed to a 2019 Memorandum of Understanding. Under it, Scherzinger committed to 45 shows for 32.5% of tour earnings, with Sutta, Roberts, Wyatt and Antin each at 12.5% and Bachar at 5%. Bachar's smaller share reflected her exit before Doll Domination. Scherzinger was also to hold a 49% stake in PCD Worldwide, a new venture meant to handle future earnings from the group and the brand.

  Antin alleged that Scherzinger then demanded 75% and overall creative control, calling it "extortion" after the promoter Live Nation had already advanced $600,000. Scherzinger's side said the higher share reflected the opportunities she would have to give up to stay in the partnership.

  Scherzinger's lawyer answered with a counter-statement about that $600,000 advance, which Antin "won't or can't repay." The statement also accused Antin of "trading on Nicole's name without her consent." Scherzinger called the lawsuit "ludicrous and false" and said the tour could not happen under those circumstances.

  In January 2022, Scherzinger confirmed the tour's cancellation in an Instagram stories post, citing "evolving circumstances surrounding the pandemic." Sutta and Bachar said they were "incredibly disappointed" to learn of it from that post, having received no official notice. They still called it "the end of a chapter" and said their sisterhood would live on. Antin also confirmed the cancellation and said everyone had made personal and financial sacrifices.

  In August 2022, Scherzinger filed a counterclaim saying Antin had been trying to engineer a comeback as far back as 2017. According to those papers, Antin obtained money from Live Nation on the promise of a comeback and tried unsuccessfully to revive the group with the American singer Pia Mia as lead. Mia was allegedly paid $100,000 for an arrangement that never happened. Scherzinger also said she had financed the X Factor: Celebrity appearance and later Australian performances, and that the original 2019 agreement had lapsed. Antin's lawyers refuted the claims.

  The Los Angeles court fight ended in a settlement whose terms were never disclosed. Scherzinger said afterward that she would be open to another reunion.

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• 8. Image and Empowerment

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  More than 400 viewers complained to Ofcom, the British broadcast regulator, after the group performed in sheer PVC outfits on The X Factor: Celebrity finale in November 2019. They accused the group of over-sexualisation. A February 2020 routine on Ant and Dec's Saturday Night Takeaway poked fun at that outing and included some censorship, yet still drew a smaller batch of complaints. The One Show drew 119 complaints, even though the group had worked with the BBC on a routine suitable for before the watershed.

  Scherzinger answered by pointing to Lizzo. If people leading a movement of self-acceptance face no criticism, she asked, why should the Dolls? They perform from "a place of passion and power," she said, and come across "like warriors." Bachar called the Takeaway appearance "hysterical" and said that "the power of a woman can be intimidating."

  Kimberly Wyatt defended the image as a message about female empowerment. On The Morning Show, she described bringing her children to rehearsals to teach them "what it means to be a Pussycat Doll and own your space as a female."

  On Network Ten's The Project in March 2020, Scherzinger granted that the costumes were provocative but said wearing so little "takes courage." Host Waleed Aly asked whether the women "fight over who wore the best tube tops and low-rise jeans?" News AU and Junkee criticised the hosts for fixating on the perceived sexual nature of the dancing. Junkee's Jared Richards called the interview "absolutely dismissive of Scherzinger as a person and The Pussycat Dolls as an act." As Scherzinger began saying "If you watch us, we dance with heart," she was cut off, and she could be heard asking whether the segment was ending. Hundreds of viewers complained on Twitter.

  Jessica Sutta told The Daily Telegraph Australia that ageism is rife in the music industry, pointing to Jennifer Lopez at 50 and to Lizzo. "It's a new era, and there's no rules anymore," she said. Scherzinger added that if there is a time to be more provocative, it is when you are grown up and comfortable in your own skin. In The Guardian, Barbara Ellen wrote a piece titled "If You Don't Like The Pussycat Dolls or Lizzo, You Can Always Look Away." She compared the attention on the Dolls to the criticism aimed at Lizzo for appearing in underwear on TikTok and at Lopez for her Super Bowl LIV halftime show. Ellen asked why sexism is so often merged with ageism or sizeism.

  Former member Kaya Jones has made a far darker claim. She says that she and other members suffered sexual abuse, that they were forced to have sex with whoever their managers told them to, and that the group was a front for a prostitution ring. The other members have denied her claims.

  Wyatt told News.com.au that the reunion felt like unfinished business because the group was misunderstood, and that there was "still a conversation to be had." In March 2026 it was confirmed that Roberts, Scherzinger and Wyatt had reunited for a new single, Club Song, and a world tour called the PCD Forever Tour.

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