The Pussycat Dolls

A dance troupe that got a record deal

The Pussycat Dolls began in 1995 as a neo-burlesque revue put together by the choreographer Robin Antin, playing Los Angeles rooms including the Viper Room with a rotating cast and a wardrobe borrowed from mid-century pin-up. For eight years it was a nightclub act rather than a band: no records, no singles, no contract.

That changed in 2003, when Antin signed the name to Interscope Geffen A&M and the troupe was rebuilt as a recording group. The line-up that made the hits was Nicole Scherzinger, Carmit Bachar, Ashley Roberts, Jessica Sutta, Melody Thornton and Kimberly Wyatt — six performers, but a studio arrangement that leaned almost entirely on Scherzinger's lead vocal, a structural imbalance that critics noted at the time and that the group has been arguing about ever since.

PCD, Doll Domination, and a fast ending

The debut album PCD arrived in 2005 and sold three million copies in the United States. "Don't Cha", "Stickwitu" and "Buttons" did the heavy lifting; two decades later Live Nation's tour announcement listed "Don't Cha" and "Buttons" as five-times platinum and "Stickwitu" as three-times platinum, with "Buttons" passing a billion YouTube views in December 2025.

The follow-up, Doll Domination, came in 2008 with "When I Grow Up" and the Slumdog Millionaire crossover "Jai Ho! (You Are My Destiny)", and sold considerably less. Bachar had left before it was released. After the 2009 world tour the group came apart: Roberts, Sutta and Wyatt went, Thornton followed, and Scherzinger left in 2010. Career totals since put worldwide sales at around 55 million records, and Billboard ranked the group the 80th most successful act of the 2000s.

A first reunion was announced in November 2019 with Bachar, Roberts, Scherzinger, Sutta and Wyatt — Thornton declined. The comeback single "React" followed in 2020. Their performance on The X Factor: Celebrity finale drew more than 400 complaints to Ofcom over the costumes and choreography, which turned out to be the least of the obstacles.

Four years in the lawyers' hands

In September 2021 Antin sued Scherzinger, alleging she had broken a memorandum of understanding over how tour profits would be split. Scherzinger's side countered that Antin had mishandled a $600,000 advance from Live Nation. The planned tour, already pushed back by the pandemic, was scrapped in January 2022, and the dispute sat unresolved until the parties settled on undisclosed terms in November 2025.

That settlement is the reason there is a 2026 tour at all. It also explains the shape of it: when the group re-emerged four months later, it did so as three people rather than five.

2026: a single, a reissue, and a shrinking itinerary

On 12 March 2026 Scherzinger, Roberts and Wyatt announced themselves as a trio, released "Club Song" and put 53 dates on sale across North America, Europe and the UK, with a general on-sale on 20 March. Produced by Mike Sabath and written with Caroline Ailin and Sarah Solovay, "Club Song" runs two minutes and 28 seconds and reached number 10 on the UK singles downloads chart in its second week, having entered at 25. Twentieth-anniversary reissues of PCD and Doll Domination followed in May, on limited vinyl and CD with remixes.

The exclusions landed immediately. Bachar said on Instagram that she learned of the reunion at the same time as everyone else and "would have appreciated direct communication". Sutta, speaking on a podcast on 22 March, said she, Bachar and Thornton were "blindsided", and told NME days later that she believed her politics were the reason: "I was a liability. I align with Bobby Kennedy, which is aligning with MAGA." The trio's stated reasoning was that they needed to "protect our peace"; Scherzinger's version was blunter — "After 20 years, you're like, 'Where is everybody?' But for us, it aligned."

Then the commercial problem. Reports in April said sales were alarmingly low. In May, a month before the first show, 33 North American dates were cancelled, including arena bookings the group had no recent touring record to justify. Only the WeHo Pride Festival set in West Hollywood on 6 June survived on that continent. A medley of "Buttons", "Don't Cha" and "When I Grow Up" with Busta Rhymes at the American Music Awards on 26 May, in red latex and surrounded by pyrotechnics, did the job it was meant to do as a shop window, but the itinerary had already been cut. In Britain, Ticketmaster has at points run a four-tickets-for-£150 offer including fees.

What the comeback show actually is

The European leg opened at the Royal Arena in Copenhagen on 9 September 2026 and is the version of the tour that survived intact. Support comes from Deja Vu and Lil' Kim across the run; Pabllo Vittar joins for the closing show at Nubank Parque in São Paulo on 30 October.

The structure is the thing reviewers have fixed on. The first block is the group: "When I Grow Up", "Beep", "Whatcha Think About That", "Bottle Pop", "I Don't Need a Man", "Wait a Minute", "I Hate This Part" and "Jai Ho!". Then the show splits into three solo sets — Wyatt with "Glaciers", "Walking in the Sun" and "Candy", Roberts with "Woman Up", Scherzinger with material including "As If We Never Said Goodbye" from Sunset Boulevard, "Right There", "Whatever U Like", "Don't Hold Your Breath" and "Wet". The trio then reassembles for "Buttons", "Stickwitu", "Hush Hush; Hush Hush", "Club Song", "React" and "Don't Cha".

Soundvenue's review of the opening night called that middle stretch roughly half an hour of desert wandering that punctured the show's momentum, and found only Scherzinger's voice convincing in isolation. The same review was warm about the rest: the hits still work, "React" showed the group can write something new, and the strongest passages were the most openly burlesque — silver glitter and leopard print, choreography that pushes past sexy into acrobatics, Wyatt and Roberts working a chair through "I Hate This Part" like nightclub dancers scaled up to an arena. GAFFA was harder on it, headlining its review with the question of whether this was a concert or a motivational speech, and objecting to a slideshow of childhood photographs and a self-congratulatory tribute to still being here.

The UK run starts at Utilita Arena Birmingham on 29 September, takes in the M&S Bank Arena in Liverpool on 3 October, and finishes at the O2 in London on 13 October. Wyatt has hinted that this could be the group's last tour, which, given how long it took to get on the road, is not an idle remark.