Hey, Hey, Paula, Do They Not Want to Marry You?

Hey, Hey, Paula, Do They Not Want to Marry You? by Roxanne McDonald

First she takes far too much flack for loopiness interpreted as drunkenness. Then there is all kinds of press over a “broken nose” incident. Then she gets sued for her solo show idea. Now Paula Abdul faces another flop: being cut down from 8 to 6 episodes and limited to one season of “Hey Paula.”

I’ve said before how the drugs she has had to take for her Reflex Sympathetic Distrophy (which took away her dance career) are what make Paula Abdul appear loaded. Still the rants rage on. The recent fall over her ubiquitous little mutt hasn’t helped Paula’s image—distorted by press and people alike as another drunken (implied) disaster.

Oh, and I almost forgot about the alleged affair with American Idol contestant Corey Clark (who, it has been suggested,

trumped up the support Paula gave him when he was voted off Idol and needed to further his clebrity status/career).
Then, after establishing a new reality TV show idea, “Hey Paula,” the straight-up dancing songstress had to put up with (or is still dealing with) a lawsuit: Pilgrim Films and Television (PFTV) is a production company who claims to have had dibs on Abdul’s reality TV show about her “strange show business life” (according to Celebrity Spider, et.al.).

Allegedly, Paula and production partner David Russo met with PFTV in 2004—brainstorming for the show that is now to air on Bravo. The lawsuit alleges, says Celebrity Spider (in February, 2007), “the project fell through when Abdul demanded final editorial control of the show.”

But for something that lay on the discussion room floor, PFTV was evidently pushing and pitching “Hey Paula” anyway. As they were attempting to sell the show to Oxegyn, Abdul had taken the project to Bravo…and made a deal.

Announced and promoted in early January, “Hey Paula” will be what Paula said she is excited to show, “…the other sides to me, beyond what they see on ‘American Idol’,” and what Bravo’s Lauren Zalaznick determines will be “an intimate

glimpse at the real woman behind the headlines.”
The promos for the show and for Paula Abdul’s greatest hits album, released in early May, are teasing and inviting in their contrast. While the ads for the album show a montaged-over clip of Paula in the 90s, dancing to and singing “Straight Up,” the ads for “Hey Paula” show the 2007 Abdul walking across a city street, getting a whistle and a yell, and Paula stumbling for a second.

The self-effacing promo promises an intimate experience, an up close and personal look into sides of Paula other than the slurring Idol judge moments. But fans shouldn’t get too comfy and bloggers shouldn’t plan to set up a component that tracks and recaps the show…very far, that is. For reportedly, Bravo has only signed the new show for six episodes—not even sustaining the first season this summer for the duration first slated of eight weeks.

According to a national rag (okay, I’m embarrassed to name…), Bravo’s Director of Development and Production, Cori Abraham, met with Paula, who was pitching for the second series of “Hey Paula”—to follow this summer’s production. But because the Bravo network is purportedly “fed up with her outrageous (?) antics,” Abraham refused her a renewal contract…and even cut the eight-episode series to six.

The outrageous antics are not those we have followed, though. They are the newly displayed behaviors that Bravo allegedly is intolerant of at this point. Reportedly, Paula complained too often, rescheduled filming sessions too frequently, and pushed the network to the brink by requiring it subsidize $150,000 for Abdul to rent a substitute home while hers is/was getting renovated.

But just as we have had to take the news and opinions of those claiming Paula is a lush or Paula is a seductress of Idol hopefuls, etc., so should we wait and hear from the star herself what the truth and true fate is of the still anticipated by some of us “Hey Paula.”

SirlinksAlot Hey Paula links
Celebrity Spider Paula Abdul links

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