Paula Abdul

Paula Julie Abdul (born June 19, 1962 in San Fernando, California) is an American dancer, choreographer, singer, and television personality who began her career as the head cheerleader and choreographer for the Los Angeles Lakers basketball team. Her mother is French-Canadian; her father is of Syrian Sephardic Jewish origin.

She started choreographing the live tour for The Jackson Five, and got her big break as the choreographer for the 1980s videos of singer Janet Jackson. In 1988, she released her debut album Forever Your Girl and, after a fairly long time, became a smash hit star. The album spawned five American top five singles (out of just ten songs): '"Forever Your Girl," "Opposites Attract," "Straight Up," "Cold Hearted" and "The Way That You Love Me." A remix album, Shut Up and Dance, was also released. The video for "Opposites Attract" featured an animated cat named MC Skat Kat. In a sign of Paula's enormous popularity, even MC Skat Kat went on to record his own solo album later that year.

Her follow up album, Spellbound, is often overlooked in musical history. Abdul made such an impact in late 1980s music that when her second effort was released in the early 1990s, everyone assumed it would be less successful. Instead, it introduced the American top ten hits "Rush, Rush," "Vibeology," "Promise of a New Day," "Will U Marry Me" and "Blowing Kisses in the Wind". The single "Rush, Rush" surprised many fans and critics at the time of its release, not only for its lush, stripped down production values and beautiful lyrics, but also because it was a "ballad". Prior to the release of "Rush, Rush", many critics had labelled Paula Abdul as a dance artist with limited vocal range who relied solely on choreography and visually appealing music clips. The album Spellbound, though it retained much of the dance oriented formula heard on her debut album, songs from the album such as "Rush, Rush", "Will U Marry Me", "Blowing Kisses in the Wind", and "Alright Tonight" showcased her growing versatility as an artist and vocalist. Even more interesting is the funk laden track "U", which was penned by Prince.

As Abdul's image shifted slowly from "beautiful" to "sexy", gossip began to circulate about her weight. At only 5 ft 2 in (157 cm), Abdul did not have the height commonly associated with dancers/choreographers. In her music video for "Promise of a New Day," camera angles were used to pinch the screen image, and tabloids claimed this was because of Abdul's weight. Then, in an appearance on the MTV Video Music Awards, Abdul did a live performance of "Vibeology" wearing a sequined boustier/swimsuit outfit that revealed she had, indeed, put on weight. This seemed to have a dramatic impact on her popularity.

Abdul took a break from the business, and resurfaced in 1993 with an exercise video. In 1995 Abdul participated in an ABC television interview with Diane Sawyer where she discussed her weight problem and her personal battles with bulimia.

In 1995 Abdul released her fourth album, Head Over Heels. With modest radio hits with the singles "My Love is For Real", "Crazy Cool" and "Ain't Never Gunna Give You Up", she showed that she was able to still create popular music while moving with the times. The first single off the album, "My Love is For Real", is perhaps one of the most unique songs in her music catalogue. Its fusion of R&B and traditional Middle Eastern instruments with its accompanying Lawrence of Arabia-inspired music video had all the trappings of a marketable hit single. However, the single stalled at the American top 30 charts. In the follow up to the single "My Love is For Real", her image became much more sexual, and she was seen scantily clad in her music video "Crazy Cool", riding a mechanical bull and pouring beer over her t-shirt/breasts. The album did not sell even remotely as well as previous efforts, and it seemed due in great part to her new image. Furthermore, many fans believe the 4 year hiatus between the release of the album Spellbound and Head Over Heels may have cooled off her core record buying public, and this may have affected the overall success of Head Over Heels.

Despite this, the album Head Over Heels remains her lengthiest album in terms of the number of tracks out of all her albums. The album also spawned three b-sides: "Didn't I say I Love You" (B-side to "My Love is For Real" Single), "Crazy Love", and "High School Crush". The latter two featured on the Japanese Import Album of "Head Over Heels", and is a highly prized and now rare collectible item amongst Paula Abdul fans.

Abdul had never had a real career as an actress, barring an appearance as "Sherri" in a low-budget musical movie from 1981 called Junior High School. In an attempt to revitalize her career as a performer, she began accepting acting roles, starting with the television movie Touched by Evil in 1997. In a genre that is hardly well respected to begin with, her performance (as a rape victim who discovers her boyfriend was her rapist) was massively rejected by both fans and critics. (In particular, fans were disgusted to see their favorite sweetheart-singer discuss performing fellatio on a character only to eject the semen into a film canister as proof of his rape crimes.) Another T.V. movie was made in 1998, The Waiting Game, which was neither panned or praised.

In the year 2000 a greatest hits CD, very originally titled Greatest Hits, was released. The CD featured an array hit singles from all three of her previous albums, as well as other noteworthy tracks. The inclusion of the song on the Greatest Hits cd "Bend Time Back Round" was only previously found on the 1993 soundtrack to the hit television series "Beverly Hills 90210".

In 2002 Abdul was offered the job of judge on the television contest show American Idol. On this show, her job was to judge the talent of a group of young amateur singers and eventually whittle a group down to just one performer (the "idol" in question). Abdul, who had seemingly emerged from obscurity, won back the hearts of America as the sympathetic and compassionate judge (paired next to co-judge Simon Cowell, who was often cruelly blunt in his appraisal of the contestants' performances). She began to resurface at awards shows, and was even given the job of co-anchor on the television magazine program Entertainment Tonight.

On March 24, 2005, she was fined and sentenced to two years of probation for a hit and run incident in Encino, California. Abdul claims she did not notice the brief contact between her Mercedes and another vehicle while she was changing lanes.

She was briefly married to the actor Emilio Estevez.

Discography