Abdul: Good for the show?
(AP Photo/Dan Steinberg)
How will Paula Abdul’s mistake affect ‘American Idol’?
What happened
American Idol judge Paula Abdul has created a controversy after critiquing contestant Jason Castro’s two songs on the show Tuesday night, although he had only performed one. When the incident happened, Abdul claimed that she had skipped ahead in her notes to another contestant, but later revealed that she had based some of her comments on notes she had made while watching Castro’s dress rehearsal.
What the commentators said
“I don’t know what Paula Abdul is or isn’t drinking, smoking, or snorting,” said Andrea Peyser in the New York Post, but she “has turned into a one-woman disaster zone. Last year, we watched as she nearly fell off the set during a live interview—a hysterical scene she blamed on prescription pain medication.” And three years ago, she was accused of sleeping with a 22-year-old American Idol contestant. What’s going on here?
Well, “scandal has always suited American Idol,” said James Hibberd in The Hollywood Reporter. “From accusations of voting irregularities to the secret personal histories of contestants, Fox’s unequaled reality hit produces a flurry of new controversies every season.” But “the more alarmed and critical the media headlines, the more Idol has thrived in the ratings.” And Abdul’s blunder “is arguably the most interesting event that’s happened on the show this season.”
But it also confirms “what some American Idol viewers have long suspected,” said Edward Wyatt in The New York Times, that the “show’s judges sometimes see portions of the dress rehearsal for the show and use that to help formulate their comments on the evening’s live performance.” This “raises questions about the credibility of the show,” which “has long promoted that each contestant’s fate hangs on the live broadcast, when anything can happen.”
