Taylor was diagnosed with stage 3 breast cancer in 2022. She responded to treatment at first, and doctors found "no evidence of the disease," a point she marked by ringing the bell. The cancer later returned and progressed to stage 4. She was given a prognosis of three months and lived about another year, putting her illness at roughly four years in all.

In their video, the sisters called Nicole "fearless" and described her as their leader and best friend. She "did CrossFit while she was doing her chemo treatments," they said, and "tried not to live in fear." She worked two jobs and traveled while in treatment. She credited her mother, her sisters and her brother with getting her through chemotherapy. Her sisters said she believed "God's going to use this for his glory."

Natalie Taylor recalled the day of the diagnosis, when a nurse told Nicole, in a public place, "You have cancer." The sisters also spoke of the strain of the treatments, MRIs and scans that followed.

The Taylors are identical triplets from Hurley, Mississippi, and Nicole was the eldest. The group, originally called Red Roots, was renamed Taylor Red in 2018 and is based in Nashville. They began by playing locally in Mississippi, and by 2021 Nicole said they were doing "100 dates a year." Over their career they have played more than 1,000 shows in the United States and abroad, including in Norway and Canada.

The trio reached a much larger audience during the COVID-19 pandemic with videos on TikTok and YouTube. Their song "Country Money" went viral in 2021, and they now have about 13 million TikTok followers and 16 million YouTube subscribers. Brand partnerships followed with Sonic Drive-In, Crocs, Lipton and Skittles, and Nicole co-hosted a radio show with Taste of Country.

The family held a private funeral service. A memorial page has been set up for Samaritan's Purse, one of Nicole's favorite charities.