Nicole Scherzinger nearly rejected the chance to star in the ‘Dirty Dancing’ remake because her deeply religious father opposes abortion.
The 38-year-old beauty plays the part of Penny in the upcoming ABC special, which is based on the iconic musical romance movie, but has admitted she considered walking away from a seven-figure payday because her character terminates her pregnancy.
She explained: "My Papa’s a bishop and my family’s really hard core against abortion. I almost didn’t take it because I didn’t want to promote abortion."
Despite this, Nicole is keen eager to discourage her fans from following in the footsteps of her on-screen character.
She told the Daily Mirror newspaper: "Hopefully they can learn from her ways and I can be a positive influence. My mum got pregnant with me when she was 17 and had me when she was 18. She chose.
"Her parents were never going to let her have an abortion. So I came out. So I just want to encourage everybody to keep your babies."
Nicole comes from a religious family, having been raised by her adoptive father Gary, who is a bishop, and her mother, Rosemary.
The ‘Poison’ hitmaker – who earned rave reviews for her performance in the West End revival of the musical ‘Cats’ – also has a grandfather who is a priest and has described her upbringing as being "very strict".
Earlier this year, meanwhile, Nicole irked Andrew Lloyd Webber, the acclaimed composer and impresario of musical theatre, after she pulled out of his Broadway musical ‘Cats’ to instead star on the UK version of ‘The X Factor’.
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."
Nicole Scherzinger almost rejected Dirty Dancing remake over abortion concerns
