The American Idol judge and her restaurateur beau have called it quits on their romantic relationship, her publicist Jeffrey Ballard told E! News in a Friday report.
“They broke up months ago,” Ballard told E! News, while a rep for Torregiani “insisted” the two are still together.
The 45-year-old Abdul and 32-year-old nightclub owner first met last April following an Idol taping and began dating as the sixth-season wrapped its broadcast run last May.
The couple moved in together last October, however Ballard told E! News that Torregiani — who is a partner in The Dolce Group, the Los Angeles restaurant group that was co-founded by Big Brother second-season houseguest and All-Stars winner Mike “Boogie” Malin — is currently living with a friend in the Hollywood Hills.
“[They] still are friendly, though,” Ballard told E! News.
Simon Cowell is never one to offer an apology, and he apparently thinks Paula Abdul doesn’t need to make one either.
During last Tuesday night’s American Idol performance episode, Abdul claimed she got confused and critiqued two Jason Castro performances after the seventh-season finalist had only performed once — basing her on-air comments on the contestant’s rehearsal of a song that he had yet to perform live.
“I don’t think [an apology] is necessary, to be honest with you. I think the whole thing has been blown out of proportion. It was a live show. She made a mistake,” Cowell told reporters while promoting America’s Got Talent at NBC’s summer season press day on Friday, Entertainment Weekly reported.
“[Castro’s] a grown-up. Look, it’s a high class problem. He’s singing in front of 25 million people. They’re all lucky to be on the show. You’ve got to put it in perspective. The year it becomes normal is the year I’ll probably leave. I genuinely like it when it’s a bit loopy.”
Cowell apparently doesn’t think Castro is much longer for the competition anyway and added the dreadlocked teenager wouldn’t have even made it as far as he has if it weren’t for his looks.
“If he looked like the Hunchback of Notre Dame, he still wouldn’t be in the competition, would he?” Cowell told reporters, Entertainment Tonight reported.
Cowell is sticking to his previous prediction that Idol’s seventh-season will be a battle between David Archuleta and David Cook, adding it could come down to the wire.
“It will be David versus David and you’re going to have a real scrap,” said Cowell, Entertainment Tonight reported. “The winner will really depend on what song they sing on the night.”
Cowell and fellow Idol judge Randy Jackson have both stated they think Archuleta is the “one to beat,” however Abdul recently said she feels she’s “already looking at the American Idol” when watching Cook perform. According to Cowell, both Archuleta and Cook have talent — however the former also has a dedicated fan base.
“David Cook has got the better voice and David Archuleta has got the teen and grandma appeal,” said Cowell, Entertainment Tonight reported.
As for the only remaining female seventh-season finalist — Syesha Mercado — Cowell thinks she’s a strong singer but has yet to deliver that single performance that would define her Idol journey.
“If I was a betting man, I wouldn’t put my money on her. She is a good singer. She is solid. She will be very happy with where she got,” he told reporters, Entertainment Tonight reported. “For me, I just haven’t had that incredible moment from her yet.”
Regardless of who makes it to Idol’s seventh-season finale, the Top 2 finalists will each have the opportunity to perform the tune chosen as the winner of this year’s songwriting contest — which Cowell wanted to make clear he isn’t involved with.
“I have nothing to do with it,” he told reporters, according to EW. “I’d like to bring in the best songwriters in the world.”
While Cowell joked that “you can guarantee either the word ‘proud’ or ‘moment’ will be in the song,” he also hinted that the format for this year’s songwriting contest could allow either of the Top 2 finalists to put their own spin on the winning track.
“I won’t give it away, but there’s a slight change to last year which is going to be an improvement,” he told reporters, according to EW.
In addition, Cowell addressed Idol’s overall 10% seventh-season ratings decline, with some of its recent broadcasts having recorded five-year lows for the Fox mega-hit.
“I think the themes are too old fashioned at the moment,” he told reporters, OK! Weekly reported. “I think you’ve got to make the themes more current and I think we haven’t got the right personalities at the moment. [The contestants are] not letting go enough. They’re very media savvy, saying the right things, not arguing with me. It’s too safe at the moment.”
As an example of what he meant by “very. very media savvy,” Cowell pointed to the 17-year-old Archuleta.
“They’ve watched the show over previous years. David Archuleta was performing in front of Kelly Clarkson six years ago — it’s on tape!” said Cowell, according to OK!. “It’s like he’s gone to the University of American Idol. Safe songs, safe message. I like people who just go a bit crazy sometimes. I’m dying for someone to scream at me one week and just say, ‘I hate your guts’ because I know they’re thinking it.”
Cowell also said he’d be in favor of some of the slight tweaks Fox and Idol producers have been hinting at for the show’s eighth edition next year.
“You have to revamp every show you make every year,” he told reporters, OK! reported. “I’ve got a few ideas.”
“American Idol” judge Paula Abdul admitted on a U.S. radio program that she mistakenly reviewed a rehearsal, not a live performance on the TV talent show.
Abdul made headlines after she offered critiques of an “Idol” contestant’s performance of two songs after he had only performed one on Tuesday night’s show.
The judge tried to clarify the confusion Wednesday on the radio show of “Idol” host Ryan Seacrest.
She explained she had seen contestant Jason Castro’s run-through of his second song as she was taking a friend to the dress rehearsal audience, The New York Times reported.
Abdul added that a change in the show’s format regarding when the judges were to offer their critiques threw her off and she ended up confusing Castro’s live performance with the rehearsal she had seen earlier.
Cecile Frot-Coutaz, chief executive of FremantleMedia North America and an executive producer of “American Idol,” told the Times, “The judges have always acknowledged they occasionally watch rehearsals, but in the end they only comment on what happens in the live show.”
Frot-Coutaz also noted the judges’ reviews don’t determine how the viewers vote.
On a night when “American Idol” switched up the judges’ format by making them hold their appraisals until every contestant had a turn, Abdul offered feedback Tuesday for two songs by Jason Castro _ except that he’d only sung one.
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Unlike the usual format, in which each “Idol” performance is judged immediately, Abdul, Randy Jackson and Simon Cowell were made to take notes, then offer individual critiques in rapid succession at the end of each round. The reason, Seacrest explained, was because “this show is so tight.”
So after each of the final five contestants sang one Neil Diamond song, Jackson zipped through his appraisals, offering a few terse words for each before kicking it to a visibly flustered Abdul.
“Oh gosh, we’ve never had to write these things down … fast enough,” she began, shuffling through her notecards. “Jason, first song, I loved hearing your lower register, which we never really hear, um … .”
And that’s where it started going off the rails.
“The second song, I felt like your usual charm wasn’t _ it was missing for me. It kind of left me a little empty.”
Indeed.
All six people on stage, including Seacrest, stared blankly (except Syesha Mercado, who wore the furrowed brow of mystification).
“The two songs,” she continued, “made me feel like you’re not fighting hard enough to get into the top four.”
After a smattering of nervous crowd laughter, Jackson finally broke the tension.
“That was just on the first song,” he said sheepishly, pointing up to Castro. “Just on the first one.”
Simon Cowell closed his eyes and shook his head, and began to guffaw as Abdul’s confusion mounted.
“Oh my god, I thought you _ I thought you sang twice!” she said.
She explained that she got confused by looking ahead at the notes for David Cook.
At that point Seacrest, who makes his money by smoothing over situations just such as these, pointed to Abdul, saying: “You’re seeing the future, baby!” before cutting her off and throwing to Cowell.
Even Cowell gathered himself to help patch up the moment, patting Abdul on the shoulder and asking, as if to speed things along, “Paula, who was your favorite?”
Her reply: Cook (the same contestant whose performance she supposedly noted as having left her “empty”).
Pressed for time, Cowell then put an end to the awkward-fest by bursting into his own rapid-fire valuation: “Jason, forgettable; David Cook, just above average; Brooke (White) a nightmare; David Archuleta, I thought it was amateurish; and Syesha, I thought it was old-fashioned.
“So guys … I want to see the performance of a lifetime coming up,” he said, as if to ensure absolute clarity, “the second time around.”
Abdul told “Entertainment Tonight” after the show that she was thrown for a loop when producers apprised the judges of the change “in the dark” at the last minute.
“This was officially the strangest show we’ve ever done,” Cowell said at the conclusion of the telecast, “but I like that. It’s kind of a bit chaotic tonight.”
Singer and “American Idol” judge Paula Abdul is set to perform at the upcoming 2008 Toyota Concert Series on “Today” in New York, NBC announced Wednesday.
Abdul’s concert is scheduled for April 25.
The series lineup includes Miley Cyrus, Mary J. Blige, Chris Brown, Alanis Morissette, Ashlee Simpson, Kenny Chesney, Coldplay and a “special surprise reunion concert.”
Neil Diamond, the B-52s, Donna Summer, Rihanna, Rascal Flatts, Natasha Bedingfield and Sheryl Crow are also slated to perform during the series, which runs through the spring and summer.
Attendance is on a first-come, first-served basis outside “Today’s” Window on the World Studio at 49th Street and Rockefeller Plaza in New York, NBC said.
Paula Abdul last released an original album 13 years ago, and now the American Idol judge is apparently ready to launch her musical comeback on one of the biggest stages around.
Fox has announced Abdul’s “Dance Like There’s No Tomorrow” music video will premiere during the network’s pregame coverage of Super Bowl XLII on Sunday, February 3, USA Today reported Monday.
The song is the first single to be released off Abdul’s upcoming “Abdulmatic” album — which is produced by fellow Idol judge Randy Jackson, whom USA Today reported will also appear during the pregame show with Abdul.
Abdul’s representative confirmed reports last week that Abdul was in talks to perform as part of Fox’s coverage of Super Bowl XLII. While Fox has yet to announce if the Idol judge will in fact sing, Fox Sports Chairman David Hill told USA Today that he’s trying to “meld two television icons” by seemingly doubling the Super Bowl telecast as one giant Idol promotion.
Fox tapped Idol host Ryan Seacrest to serve as the master of ceremonies for Super Bowl XLII at Arizona’s University of Phoenix Stadium in Glendale, AZ — which is the hometown of Idol sixth-season champ Jordin Sparks, who will sing the national anthem prior to the game.
“I wish [Idol judge] Simon Cowell had called and said he’s doing, say, an audio book of poetry. Simon reading William Wordsworth. It’d probably sell,” Hill joked to USA Today.
Super Bowl XLII will be Fox’s first Super Bowl broadcast in three years (the game rotates annually among Fox, CBS, and NBC, the NFL’s three broadcast network partners), and while Hill was the first to acknowledge Fox could be “overboard on entertainment,” according to USA Today, he quickly added that it will be all about football following the kickoff.
“No personalities in the booth,” he told USA Today. “I disagree with that totally — 200%.”
Paula Abdul said she has learned a lot about herself during her time as an “American Idol” judge.
“I have a strength I didn’t know I had. It’s a live program, and a naughty British man is constantly making people think there’s something weird in my Coca-Cola cup,” Abdul told Ladies’ Home Journal. “But I’m proud of myself. I always figure out a way to swim.”
She also said it has been interesting to see how “Idol” contestants and winners deal with their overnight success.
“Our performers think they’re going to manage, but the reality is they’re not,” she said. “It can be a letdown even when you advance, because success is never what you expect. I just hope they have loving friends and family if they have to go back to their jobs at Burger King.”
As for her personal life, Abdul described her relationship with her new boyfriend, restaurateur J.T. Torregiani, as “a good thing.”
“I’ve experienced real loneliness, so I love knowing there’s someone I can share the good and the not-so-good with,” she said. “And I want kids! If it doesn’t happen naturally, I can always adopt.”
Paula Abdul has insisted that her purpose in life is to discover new musical talent on American Idol, according to a statement she made to OK!.
The 45-year-old revealed that she derives more pleasure from serving as a judge on the TV singing contest than she ever received from her early nineties pop career.
She told OK!: “I knew since I was a little girl that I had this profound way of touching people. My purpose is bringing out everybody’s best and being that cheerleader to other people’s success.
“Being a judge on American Idol overshadows being a Grammy winner and selling millions of records.”
Singer Paula Abdul, the sweet but kookie member of the judging trio on “American Idol,” is the star of a new reality series, “Hey Paula,” premiering on the Bravo cable channel on Saturday, June 28, the Interfaith Family informs.
Because of her features and her Arab last name, many people assume that Abdul is of mixed race and/or interfaith background. This assumption is wrong.
Abdul is the daughter of a Jewish father of Syrian Jewish descent and a Canadian-born Jewish mother. She has been married twice, once to Catholic actor Emilio Estevez (Martin Sheen’s son) and once to a Jewish fashion designer. Neither marriage lasted long.
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Singer and “American Idol” judge Paula Abdul is set to perform at the upcoming 2008 Toyota Concert Series on “Today” in New York, NBC announced Wednesday.
