Filipino-American singer Nicole Scherzinger busy amid split woe

The Filipino-American singer Nicole Scherzinger, of the pop-girl group and dance ensemble Pussycat Dolls, is throwing herself into work, following a split with the Brit Formula One ace Lewis Hamilton.

On July 1 Scherzinger did a gig in Italy’s Sardinia, the second-largest island in the Mediterranean Sea, prompting unnamed sources, as quoted by the UK-based tabloid ‘The Sun’, to say that she keeps herself busy to deal with pain.

The two actually split up a month ago after a five-year romance—possibly due to their lack of time to be with each other—but have remained quiet about the matter, except to a few close friends and family, who comfort them.

“Nicole is heartbroken about the split,” a source said. “She thought she was ‘the one’ but it didn’t work out.”

Born in Hawaii, the 35-year-old Scherzinger had a Filipino for a biological father, but was adopted by her stepfather when her parents split up while she was still a baby. Her mother Rosemary used to be a professional hula dancer.

The 28-year-old Hamilton first got mesmerised by Scherzinger’s sultry looks as she performed at an MTV awards in 2007, in Germany, and met her backstage.

“She’s so beautiful,” he then told an interviewer at the MTV bash in Munich. “Can you feel the heat, man?”

Scherzinger wrote a song for Hamilton, who has been credited for bringing glamour back to the F1 pit lane, titled ‘I Think I’m in Love’, after a whirlwind romance with dates across the globe that followed their fist meeting.

“It’s hard because they both live so far away but I know they really enjoy each other’s company,” Rosemary, who liked Hamilton for her daughter, told ‘The Sun’ in 2008. “We want to meet him but we haven’t had the chance yet with him being in the UK and her being in LA.”

Scherzinger, who described herself as “crippingly shy” during her younger days, said it was her music that had brought her out of herself.

She started to focus on singing and acting with her local theatre group, the Actors Theatre of Louisville, in Kentucky in the US Midwest, where her family moved from the Pacific when she was 3 years old. She went on to study at the exclusive Youth Performing Arts School at duPont Manual High School.

After school she went on to win the US version of telly talent show ‘Popstars’ and joined the band Eden’s Crush. The group disbanded in 2001, and Scherzinger auditioned for Pussycat Dolls in 2003.

“We always knew she had talent so we tried to encourage her,” Rosemary said of her daughter in 2008. “She’s a good girl and worked really hard to get where she’s at.”

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