American Idol Meltdown: Paula Abdul Talks!
By Art Harris, (c) www.artharris.com, all rights reserved
Obama-Hillary, Rev. Wright’s controversy, the flailing economy and Iraq all took a backseat to what appeared to be a Paula Abdul meltdown on America Idol Tuesday night, the country’s most popular television show, and sent Hollywood reporters scrambling to crack the mystery of the superstar singer’s mis-speaks judging contestants.
But celebrity judge Abdul says last minute format changes not only confused her, but also unsettled host Ryan Seacrest, and fellow judges Randy Jackson and Simon Cowell, and re-opened the door for rumors she’d been drinking or taking prescription drugs for chronic back pain from a plane crash 12 years ago.
“That’s very sweet that someone would think that,” she told Atlanta’s popular radio station, 99.7 FM, calling The Bert Show Wednesday morning in a scramble to perform damage control with fans across the country.
“I do have pain in my neck, but I don’t take any drugs that make me act differently, especially on the show,” she said in the call-in interview. “I wouldn’t do that. I’ve been in pain since the plan crash and had surgery, but no one has ever (accused) me of that.”
In fact the popular singer denied drinking or ever doing drugs. “I have never been drunk in my life and never done recreational junk,” she told the radio show. “It’s not my deal, and I don’t condone anyone in the business doing it.”
She said American Idol producers only informed her and other judges the usual order of battle – a critique after every song — would have to wait until each contestant had sung two songs each, setting the stage for Abdul’s mad scramble to take notes in the dark.
After Judge Randy Jackson did his down and dirty take of each singer, Paula grabbed her notes to assess contestant Jason Castro.
“Jason, in the first song I loved hearing your lower register which we never really hear,” she told Castro. “The second song, I felt like your usual charm was missing. The two songs sound like you’re not fighting hard enough to get into the top four.”
There was just one teeny problem—all the contestants, including Castro had only crooned ONE song and looked puzzled. One critic noted Ryan Seacrest glancing off stage as if hunting a clue from producers.
“Just on the first song,” Randy Jackson blurted out.
“Omigod,” said Paula, “I thought you sang twice.” She looked agitated.
“Paula, you’re seeing the future,” said Seacrest, before the show returned to its usual format.
Right after the show, Abdul told Entertainment Tonight in a limousine interview that she experienced a “small slip of the tongue” while pondering finalist Jason Castro’s first performance.
“It got very confusing … the producers come up to us in the dark and said, ‘We are not going to have you guys judge after each performer, we are going to have all the performers go once, then twice and at the end critique them (all).'”
Surprised by the last minute switch in judging procedures, Paula told ET, “I am feverishly trying to write notes for every performance.”
Her confusion set tongues wagging coast to coast. “There’s no mystery to what happened Tuesday night,” she told Atlanta’s 99.7 FM the next day.
“It was a snafu on the producers’ part; they changed the way we did the show and we all did the best we could.”
Click to watch Entertainment Tonight Interview with Paula Abdul.
Click to watch Paula on American Idol. the http://www.tmz.com/tmz_main_video?titleid=1529520166
Click The Bert Show for the Atlanta radio show that got the Paula interview.
April 30th, 2008 at 2:44 pm
Hi Art
Oh Paula, how can you blame someone else when you judged 2 songs and they only sang 1???
I don’t know what to say, if she says Meds or alcohol isn’t her problem, maybe she’s been smoking some of that Texas tumble weed???? lol
April 30th, 2008 at 2:50 pm
AWWW give Paula a break. Maybe she is just a talented person who has a problem staying focused.
Anyway Art, as you said above about “tongues wagging from coast to coast”…..doesn’t take much to cause that.
April 30th, 2008 at 6:47 pm
I can remember when most TV shows were done live. Is that telling my age or what, lol. I’m happy to see they are doing more live shows than what they have been. I didn’t see this show. Actually I have rarely watched Idol. I used to watch America’s Got Talent and that was live, then you could go to the computer and vote for the person you thought was best. There are so few shows on TV anymore that I care to watch. A good book is much better.
April 30th, 2008 at 8:35 pm
I like Paula Abdul and she gets some pretty bad press for someone who works as hard as she does. Have any of you ever watched Hey Paula her reality tv show? I have an realize how much hollywood sucks out of you,if you want to work in that town or make money aside from prostition you have to hussle 24/7. Paula has had neck injuries but from what I see is not on any pain medication I saw the show last night.
I have a son with special needs, one day he asked me is there such a thing called being perfect..I said NO one is perfect everyone has a little something off I might talk too much, I tell him his grand pa has lung problems, his own dad cannot control his temper etc etc no one is perfect.
Paula is not perfect and she made a simple mistake lets leave it at that and try not to read anything into it other than confusion it happens to the best of us. Maybe her underware was too tight or something like that she is a good soul and instead of looking for things wrong let us look for things that this girl does right. I love the way she tells Simple Simon off and how she is always positive no matter what, even if she does not like the performance she is not brutal like some of the other judges. She never ruins the self esteem of others which is a positive in my books, “YOU GO GIRLFRIEND AND KEEP ON DOING WHAT YOU DO BEST IGNORE THE REST!!!”
April 30th, 2008 at 9:49 pm
I think everyone should give Paula a break. She has a kind, sweet, innocent way about her and a very unique way of speaking. They changed everything during the show, she was caught off guard and at the end of the clip she said “this is hard”. I think Paula is a real sweetheart and wish people would stop with the guessing and accept the fact that she has a sweet, special type personality. Everyone seems quick to assume the worst about Paula and that is just not fair to her.
May 3rd, 2008 at 1:07 am
Art Harris, Paula Abdul is a nice and hard worker.Don’t jumb to fast on conclusion.That doesn’t help anyway!
May 4th, 2008 at 1:13 pm
All the judges watch the dress rehearsals before the show. So she read off her notes for both songs,what’s the big deal? That show has blown chunks after they booted off the hot Michael Johns and the talented Carly Smithson. Art,can you please get an interview with Michael and any photo’s too.thanks!
PS-that BORING David Archuletta sucks bad and the judges are ga-ga.He really butchered poor Neil Diamond. I just don’t get it.zzzzzzzzzzzzzz.