Paula Abdul

• 1. Introduction

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  Paula Abdul is an American singer, dancer, choreographer and television personality, and one sentence she spoke to a record executive changed the shape of her career. Years afterward, Jeff Ayeroff recalled it this way: "She said, 'I can sing, you know. I want to do an album.'" At that point she was known across the music business for what her body could do, not for her voice. Within a few years, her songs were everywhere. Later she would be recognized by millions of viewers for something else entirely: the way she spoke to nervous strangers. How does a woman who choreographs other people's stars become one herself? What does it cost to stay in the spotlight for four decades? And what happens when the spotlight turns on her private life?

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• 2. Laker Girl

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  Paula Julie Abdul was born in San Fernando, California, on the 19th of June 1962. Her father, Harry Abdul, was of Syrian Jewish heritage. He was born in Aleppo, Syria, and raised in Brazil before he immigrated to the United States. Her mother, Lorraine, was a concert pianist from Minnedosa, Manitoba, in Canada. Paula had an older sister named Wendy. The film Singin' in the Rain, with Gene Kelly dancing through it, first pointed her toward show business.

  She took ballet, jazz and tap lessons from an early age. At Van Nuys High School she was both a cheerleader and an honor student. At 15 she won a scholarship to a dance camp near Palm Springs. In 1978 she appeared in a low-budget independent musical film called Junior High School. She graduated in 1980 and went on to study broadcasting at California State University, Northridge.

  During her freshman year, 700 candidates competed for places on the cheerleading squad of the Los Angeles Lakers basketball team, the famed Laker Girls. Abdul was chosen at the age of 18. Within a year she had become the squad's head choreographer, and she stayed with the Laker Girls until 1986. Among the people watching her routines from the arena seats were several members of the Jacksons.

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• 3. The Choreographer

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  Years later, Abdul admitted that telling the Jacksons how to dance had frightened her. She said she was "not quite sure how she got through that." The job was the video for their single "Torture". It worked so well that she was soon choreographing music videos full time. She also staged the Jacksons' Victory tour.

  The most important partnership came with Janet Jackson. Abdul choreographed the videos for "What Have You Done for Me Lately", "Nasty", "When I Think of You" and "Control". Her client list grew to include ZZ Top for "Velcro Fly", Duran Duran for "Notorious" and George Michael for "Monkey". She also worked on George Michael's Faith Tour in 1988. This was the height of the music video era, and a choreographer could shape how a song looked to a whole generation.

  Film studios noticed. In 1988 she choreographed sequences for the giant keyboard scene in Big, in which Tom Hanks's character dances on an oversized floor piano. Other credits included Can't Buy Me Love and The Running Man in 1987, Coming to America in 1988, The Doors in 1991 and Jerry Maguire in 1996. She won Primetime Emmy Awards for choreography, including one for The Tracey Ullman Show and one for her own performance at the 1990 American Music Awards.

  In 1987, while other artists were hiring her to move their bodies, she spent her own savings on a singing demo.

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• 4. Forever Your Girl

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  Virgin Records America was brand new when Jeff Ayeroff signed Abdul to it. Ayeroff had worked in marketing at A&M Records with Janet Jackson, so he knew Abdul's reputation. She was a skilled dancer but a relatively untrained singer. She worked with various vocal coaches and record producers, and she developed a mezzo-soprano range. Ayeroff explained his thinking: "If she can sing, she could be a star. So she went into the studio and cut a demo record and she could sing."

  Her debut album, Forever Your Girl, appeared in 1988 and became the most successful debut album in history at that time. It took 64 weeks to reach number one on the Billboard 200, and then it held the top spot for 10 weeks. Four of its singles reached number one on the Billboard Hot 100: "Straight Up", "Forever Your Girl", "Cold Hearted" and "Opposites Attract". No debut album had ever produced that many. The RIAA later certified the album 7 times platinum.

  A remix album, Shut Up and Dance: Mixes, reached number seven in the United States and became one of the most successful remix albums to date. At the 32nd Grammy Awards, Abdul won Best Music Video for "Opposites Attract". She was also nominated for Best Female Pop Vocal Performance for "Straight Up", but Bonnie Raitt's "Nick of Time" beat it.

  In 1991, a singer named Yvette Marine sued Virgin Records, though not Abdul directly. She claimed that her lead guide vocals had been blended with Abdul's and passed off as one voice on at least two songs, most notably "Opposites Attract". A jury rejected Marine's claim for credit and copyright compensation in 1993.

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• 5. Spellbound and Silence

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  Spellbound, released in 1991, added two more number-one singles: "Rush Rush" and "The Promise of a New Day". A third single, "Blowing Kisses in the Wind", reached number six for three consecutive weeks. The album kept the dance-pop sound of her debut, brought in elements of R&B, and sold 7 million copies worldwide. The video for "Rush Rush" borrowed the look of Rebel Without a Cause, with Keanu Reeves in the James Dean role.

  That same year she starred in a popular Diet Coke commercial, dancing with a digital image of a young Gene Kelly. In December 1991 she received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. Her Under My Spell Tour, named through an MTV fan contest, was nearly cancelled after an accident during rehearsals. It began on schedule in October 1991 and concluded in August 1992.

  With six number-one singles on the Hot 100, Abdul then tied Diana Ross for the third-most chart-toppers among female solo artists. As of 2025, she shares seventh place on that list with Ross and Lady Gaga.

  After this run, her career paused while she sought treatment for personal and physical issues. Her third album, Head over Heels, came out in 1995. It peaked at number 18 on the Billboard 200 and later became her lowest-selling release, with more than 500,000 copies sold in the United States. Its lead single, "My Love Is for Real", fused R&B with traditional Middle Eastern instruments and featured the Yemeni-Israeli singer Ofra Haza. The Lawrence of Arabia-inspired video played in theaters around the world as a prologue to the film Clueless. The song reached number one on the Hot Dance Music/Club Play chart and number 28 on the Hot 100.

  Other work filled the gap. In 1995 she released a hip-hop style workout video, Paula Abdul's Get Up and Dance!, and in 1998 she followed it with Cardio Dance. In 1997 she co-wrote "Spinning Around" with Kara DioGuardi as a planned comeback single. The album never materialized, and the song was later given to Kylie Minogue. She also played a businesswoman in the ABC television film Touched By Evil. In 1998 she choreographed the musical Reefer Madness, and in 1999 she staged the cheerleading scenes in American Beauty.

  In 2001 she co-produced the pilot of Skirts, an MTV series about a high school cheerleading squad, and was set to appear as head coach. The pilot never aired.

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• 6. The Judges' Table

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  In 2002 Abdul became one of three judges on the Fox competition American Idol, and she won praise as a sympathetic and compassionate mentor. Beside Simon Cowell, who was often blunt about contestants' performances, she seemed especially kind. When she realized how heartbreaking Cowell's over-the-top style was for many young contestants, she was horrified and considered leaving the show. Cowell says he played a major role in convincing her to stay. Their differences still produced heated on-air exchanges. During this time she also worked as a reporter for Entertainment Tonight, and in 2006 she guest judged auditions on the third series of The X Factor UK, alongside Cowell, Sharon Osbourne and Louis Walsh.

  In 2007 Bravo launched Hey Paula, a reality series that followed her through her days. Comedian Rosie O'Donnell described her behavior on it as "erratic", audiences and critics criticized the show, and Bravo cancelled it after one season. That same year, Paula Abdul Jewelry made its national debut on QVC. Her first appearance produced 15 sellouts of her first collection, which involved more than 34,000 pieces.

  In July 2009, her manager David Sonenberg told the Los Angeles Times, "Very sadly, it does not appear that she's going to be back on Idol." In August she confirmed she would not return for the ninth season. The Times cited reports that she had been earning as much as $5 million per season and was seeking as much as $20 million. Ellen DeGeneres replaced her. Abdul said the decision was about standing on principle, not money.

  Other panels followed. In November 2010 she co-founded AuditionBooth.com, a site connecting aspiring talent with casting directors, producers and managers. In January 2011 she began judging, and executive producing, Live to Dance on CBS, which she called less about "competition" and more about "celebration". CBS cancelled it after seven episodes. That May she was announced for the first season of the American X Factor, rejoining Cowell, but she left in January 2012 and Demi Lovato replaced her.

  On the 9th of July 2013 she guest judged So You Think You Can Dance. She then served on the revamped Australian edition on Network Ten, which aired from the 9th of February to the 1st of May 2014. She became a permanent judge of the American version starting with its twelfth season, and in January 2017 she said she would not return for the fourteenth because of her tour schedule. In October 2020 she was named a panelist on Fox's The Masked Dancer. In April 2021 she came back to American Idol as a guest judge when Luke Bryan was out sick after a COVID-19 diagnosis.

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• 7. Back on Stage

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  In 2008, Abdul returned to the music charts for the first time in nearly thirteen years. The single was "Dance Like There's No Tomorrow", the first track on Randy Jackson's Music Club Vol. 1. It debuted on On Air with Ryan Seacrest, and she performed it during the pre-game show for Super Bowl XLII. It peaked at number 62 on the Hot 100 and number 2 on the Hot Dance Music/Club Play chart. Reports of a new album followed, but none appeared.

  In May 2009 she debuted "I'm Just Here for the Music", a song originally left unreleased from Kylie Minogue's ninth album, Body Language. It reached number 87 on the Hot 100 and became her fifteenth song to appear on that chart.

  On the 6th of August 2016 she played a full headline set for the first time in 26 years, at the Mixtape Festival in Hershey, Pennsylvania. In 2017 she toured with New Kids on the Block and Boyz II Men on the Total Package Tour. It began on the 12th of May in Columbus, Ohio, and ended on the 16th of July in Hollywood, Florida, after 47 shows. She told Elle, "I always wanted to get back on stage, because I missed it."

  The 30th anniversary of Forever Your Girl inspired her own tour, Straight Up Paula!, which opened in Tulsa, Oklahoma, on the 18th of October 2018. It concluded in Los Angeles on the 7th of June 2019, after 25 shows. That day she also opened LA Pride. In 2019 she closed the Billboard Music Awards with a medley of her hits. She then announced her first Las Vegas residency, Paula Abdul: Forever Your Girl, on the 1st of May 2019. Its first leg began on the 13th of August and ran for 20 dates, ending in January 2020.

  In 2023 she joined the producing team of the Broadway musical How to Dance in Ohio, and she appeared as a contestant on Celebrity Wheel of Fortune. In 2024 she co-headlined The Magic Summer Tour, though her Straight Up! to Canada Tour, scheduled for September 2024, was cancelled. On the 2nd of March 2025 she judged the first round of the tenth series of Let's Dance, the Slovak version of Strictly Come Dancing, filmed in Bratislava.

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• 8. Under Scrutiny

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  In 1994, Abdul sought treatment for bulimia nervosa, which she later revealed had first developed during her teens. It intensified once she became a pop star. She explained, "Food numbed the fear and anxiety." She also said she was diagnosed in November 2004 with reflex sympathetic dystrophy, a neurological disorder causing chronic pain, after a cheerleading accident at age 17. In April 2006 she told Hollywood police she was thrown against a wall at a private party, and she said she sustained a concussion and spinal injuries.

  Abdul has also said she was seriously injured in a 1992 plane crash in Iowa during the Under My Spell Tour, which she says required fifteen cervical spinal surgeries. Jezebel and other publications questioned the account, partly because the National Transportation Safety Board has no record of a matching accident. In 2020 she said, "There are seven other people that were on the plane, who were in that plane accident with me." No one else has publicly corroborated it, though she says they signed non-disclosure agreements.

  In December 2004, she changed lanes on a Los Angeles-area freeway, hit another car in her Mercedes-Benz and did not stop. The other driver and passenger photographed the scene and wrote down her license plate. In March 2005 she pleaded no contest to misdemeanor hit-and-run driving. She was fined US$900, given 24 months of informal probation and ordered to pay US$775 for the damage.

  In May 2005, ABC's Primetime Live reported claims by Corey Clark, a season 2 Idol contestant, that he and Abdul had an affair and that she coached him. Some thought his timing suspicious, since he was marketing a CD and seeking a book deal. Abdul mostly declined to comment. Cowell defended her, saying, "It was just somebody using her to get a lot of publicity for an appalling record, full stop." In August 2005 Fox confirmed her return, citing "insufficient evidence that the communications between Mr. Clark and Ms. Abdul in any way aided his performance".

  Substance-abuse allegations followed what some called erratic behavior on Idol. After reading them on message boards, Abdul told People in April 2005 that she was pain-free after anti-inflammatory medication. In January 2007, videos circulated of her swaying in her chair and slurring her speech. Her publicist blamed fatigue and technical difficulties, and Hey Paula showed she had not been sleeping. In February 2007 she told Us Weekly she had never been drunk or used illegal drugs. In May 2009, Ladies' Home Journal posted an article saying she had stayed at a resort in Carlsbad, California, to recover from dependence on prescription pain medications. Days later she told radio station WKQI the account was inaccurate.

  Abdul married actor Emilio Estevez in 1992 and filed for divorce in 1994. In 1995 she said she wanted children and Estevez, who already had two, did not. In 1996 she married clothing designer Brad Beckerman at the New England Carousel Museum in Bristol, Connecticut. They filed for divorce in 1998 after 17 months, citing irreconcilable differences. She is observant in her Jewish faith, and in 2013, at 51, she had her bat mitzvah in Safed, Israel.

  On the 29th of December 2023, Abdul filed a lawsuit accusing producer Nigel Lythgoe of sexual assault during their time together on American Idol. Lythgoe denied the allegations. In December 2024 the case was reported settled. She said, "I am grateful that this chapter has successfully come to a close and is now something I can now put behind me," and hoped her experience could inspire other women facing similar obstacles.

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