Paula Abdul can't understand why the media thinks she's odd

LOS ANGELES, Calif. -- For the dozens of journalists gathered here today for the American Idol press tour conference, there's really one question that rises above all.

What's Paula going to say?

Onetime pop star and Idol judge Paula Abdul remains a magnet for reporters.

One moment, she may be criticizing a performance that didn't happen, the next she's saying Idol producers knowingly put someone who was stalking her into the show's auditions. Still, despite all the controversy, Abdul says it's "the most absurd thing" to keep asking whether she's going to stay on the show, especially after producers added a fourth judge.

“For whatever reason, Paula Abdul, the name, makes people start creating rumors," said Abdul, as a dozen journalists crowded around her after the press session. "It’s the most absurd thing to watch me being characterized that way. Because I am not at all what you guys think I am. I think they should all be happy that I’m on the show. Because even when nobody’s talking about Idol (tabloid headlines scream) Paula! Abdul! It’s the strangest thing for me to watch."

Abdul and fourth judge Kara DioGuardi made a point of noting their friendship, recounting how Abdul took DioGuardi into her home 10 years ago, after hearing one of her demo tapes. Later, the two would write a hit for Kylie Minogue; today, Abdul revealed that DioGuardi walked in her sleep when they were roommates and forgot an incident when somebody stole her purse after grabbing "a certain body part."

The joking distracted from a niggling question: Is Abdul happy on the show? And is DioGuardi considered, as one writer put it, "Paula insurance" in case she goes completely off the rails?

"I'm very happy doing the show," Abdul said; during the press conference she declined to talk about her very public complaints about how producers handled Paula Goodspeed, who she said was put in an Idol audition despite warnings that she was a stalker. Last year, Goodspeed killed herself in front of Abdul's home. "I can't talk about that because it's an ongoing police report."

There's a bit of nervousness in the room. Most returning TV shows have seen dips in audience and Idol has some major changes in store -- embodied in the hiring of a fourth judge. And there's always that persistent question:

What will Paula say?

Fortunately for Idol, Abdul was supportive and loyal throughout today's press event. "I’m celebrating this year 2009 my 20 years' anniversary from where I was still a Laker girl and had a No. 1 single in Straight Up," she said. "I just had a very successful special on MTV  . . . and things are going well.”

There was a Paula-ism toward the end of her time here, when a journalist asked about Valentine's Day, and Abdul gave her only dating don't: "A guy should never take his fingers and put it in your food to taste it.” Mmm-hmm.

She'll even be headed for the Tampa Bay area, spending Inauguration Day in town thanks to an appearance selling jewelry on the Home Shopping Network. Will she let an enterprising young TV critic watch the inauguration with her, as she sees Obama sworn in?

"We'll see," says her manager when I ask, unable to shake my hand because he's holding Abdul's tiny dog. "We'll check the schedule and let you know." Which wasn't odd at all. 

Can't wait to watch the show tonight. 

*