Paula Abdul is tired of “people not treating me like the gift that I am.”
So she is joining the ranks of Britney Spears, the late Anna Nicole Smith and Whitney Houston in allowing reality TV cameras to follow her life for a Bravo series premiering at 9 p.m. Thursday.
“Hey Paula” is the 45-year-old former pop star’s attempt to show that there is a lot more to her than what we see on “American Idol.”
Indeed there is. The seven-episode series reveals a tale of two Paulas.
Paula No. 1 is an effervescent, upbeat woman who sacrifices her sleep and personal life to design jewelry, clothing and her own perfume line, makes many public appearances and cracks herself up when she tells her entourage that she wishes she had asked Joan Rivers at the Grammys: “What plastic surgeon are you wearing?”
Paula No. 2 is an emotionally wrought insomniac who believes the world is against her.
Abdul hasn’t commented on the show, leaving the people who worked with her on it to explain why she would want to subject herself to more reality show ridicule.
“I think that maybe Paula felt as though she wasn’t being portrayed accurately by the media,” said Cori Abraham, an executive producer on the series. “I think she really wanted to show that she has many different sides to her, that she’s not just … a person who had issues — like her satellite media tour.”
Ah, the satellite media tour. That was the January fiasco that left Abdul appearing to be drunk or drugged on TV as she did publicity for “Idol.” Abdul sat in a New York studio alone, fielding questions from Fox affiliates she heard through an earpiece. She could not see the anchors, but they and viewers could see her, and the zaniness that transpired was media fodder for weeks. Bravo’s cameras captured it all.
Still, Abraham believes the footage will make Americans more sympathetic toward the “Idol” judge.
“She’s human, and she’s not unbreakable, and she has feelings, and things affect her,” Abraham said. “… It was important for her to get that message out.”
