Paula Abdul quits Idol on Twitter
By Dave Jeyes
A long-standing judge of the television show American Idol, Paula Abdul announced her resignation last night on Twitter. Of all the celebrities to use Twitter as their personal PR machine, Abdul’s history of strange behavior makes her an unlikely candidate.
The one-time pop sensation says the part she’ll miss most is, “nurturing all the new talent.” In the same tweet she pats herself on the back for helping the show become an international phenomenon.
Just prior to her announcement, Abdul had apparently been live on the Home Shopping Network. The fact that she’s doing such appearances just proves that her stardom faded long ago.
Fans can watch the story unfold on her Twitter page at http://www.twitter.com/PaulaAbdul. It’s a verified account, so fans can be assured that it is in fact Abdul.
Early reports indicate that Abdul’s decision to quit the show comes after a contract dispute. Apparently Paula wanted an increase over her $2 million salary from last season.
As much as Abdul was one Idol’s underpinnings, it was also a second chance for her to step into the spotlight long after her musical career was over. It’s sad to see her ego end what may be her last chance for a multi-million dollar salary.
For some time fans of the show questioned Paula’s behavior as she seemed to slur her words and get confused on-screen. With such a delicate public image, it’s strange that she has chosen to use Twitter as her press agent.
More and more celebrities are interacting with their fans via the online micro-blogging site. However, most keep the conversation centered around their daily life and hyping their projects.
Could it be time for celebrities to start managing their own public image? It certainly is more authentic to hear such news directly from horse’s mouth, although it may not always be a wise career move.
Related:
Entry was posted
on Wednesday, August 5th, 2009 at 9:52 am
under
Read more entries by Dave Jeyes.
Stumble It!
August 5th, 2009
I wonder who would they have replace her…Wanda Sykes…lol
August 6th, 2009
Why replace her at all? Idol was a MESS last season with schedule overruns once the live shows started. Attributable almost entirely to having FOUR judges comment versus THREE. Yes, I know there are other shows elsewhere that succeed with FOUR judges, but Fox sure hasn’t developed a formula that works with FOUR and keeps the show within it’s time constraints. I can’t count the number of times last season where it ran long and the DVR missed the end. Sure, I can manually adjust the end time on a per episode basis, but that’s a royal PITA. And sure, I can set my DVR to also record the newscast that follows, so I don’t miss the end of Idol. But neither of those solutions work very well when there are two other shows I want to record that start on the next hour and neither are on Fox! PLUS, FOUR judges gives Simon effectively TWO votes, so unless all three of the others vote together in opposition to Simon, the show really becomes almost solely “Simon Cowell’s Idol”, not “American Idol”, at which point why have ANY of the other three??
IMHO..this whole Paula thing has been planned out more than a year ago. Idol KNEW they wouldn’t be picking up Paula after last season, or Paula had told them flat out she was done after last season and just isn’t admitting it now. They brought in Kara last year and while she hasn’t been the hit or the fan fave that Paula was, so wasn’t a disaster either. Either that or Paula’s salary demands to keep her sitting beside Kara (who we know already DID sign on) were just out of the realm of what Idol would even consider.
So now they move on, going back to THREE judges like it ought to be, and perhaps they can keep within schedule.