Nicole Scherzinger claims that the casting director of Cats refused to see her audition – despite her playing Grizabella in the West End.
The 41-year-old was nominated for an Olivier Award for her performance as faded glamourpuss Grizabella in the West End revival of Cats in 2014, in which she performed the musical’s standout song, Memory.
However, Nicole will not be in the big-screen adaptation of the Andrew Lloyd Webber musical, and she admits she is ‘devastated’ about it.
Speaking to the Guardian, Nicole – who has just reunited with the Pussycat Dolls – claimed the casting director wouldn’t see her audition and said: ‘That really upset me, I won’t lie about that. I was devastated.
‘I just wanted to be given a fair opportunity – then you can turn me down. Turn me down to my face, at least, and they didn’t.’
Scherzy added that Lloyd Webber’s wife Madeleine comforted her over the phone about the situation.
Nicole had initially rubbed Lloyd Webber up the wrong way when she dropped out of her planned role in Cats on Broadway to return to The X Factor as judge – leading to the composer embarking on a notorious rant with the Economist Radio.
He said: ‘A week before we were due to go into rehearsal for Cats on Broadway, which luckily I’m not producing, she calls me and says she’s decided she wants to do X Factor, having agreed everything.
‘I mean, she’s crazy. But the American producers just took a view, “Well, fine, we’ll get somebody else”, because she’s actually not very well known in America, amazingly. She’s much better known here.
‘I’m furious because I really believe she’s the most fantastically talented girl and I went out on a limb to get her for the London Palladium here, and it makes me look like an absolute t**t with them all.
‘But never mind, there’ll be another girl on Broadway and Nicole will not get her Tony award.’
While Nicole is upset about not nabbing a role in Cats, at least she’s escaped the backlash to the movie – which has cast Jennifer Hudson as Grizabella.
After the first trailer for the film dropped, Cats was ripped to shreds, with movie fans baffled by the CGI fur, cat boobs and superimposed faces used to create the feline cast.
Alongside Jennifer, Taylor Swift, Dame Judi Dench, Sir Ian McKellen, James Corden, Idris Elba, Rebel Wilson and Jason Derulo all star in the movie.
Cats is in cinemas on 20 December.
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