Tuesday, 16 January 2007

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Paula Abdul explains her bizarre behaviour

Actress reveals why she swayed and bobbed on national TV

Paula Abdul says the reason her behavior seemed so bizarre during a TV appearance last week was because of an audio snafu during a live interview to promote the new season of American Idol.

Appearing on The Tonight Show on Monday, Jay Leno quizzed the Idol judge on the clip, which has since become a hot property on the Internet.

"I did a big week of press all last week in New York, and on the third day I did one of those press junkets where you're in that one little room and you're looking at one camera and there are 30 cities talking into your ear," said Abdul. "I guess Alabama was in my ear and so was Seattle at the same time, so I'm answering questions to the wrong answers of the cities. So they're going, 'What the heck? what is she saying?' "

Abdul, 44, made the strange appearance on a local Seattle station in which she swayed, bobbed and winked at the anchors. When asked what she was looking forward to on the new season of Idol, Abdul responded enigmatically: "How about a lot of you coming in. It's a wild party where you are."

Afterwards, Abdul's spokesman, Jeff Ballard, told PEOPLE the incident is "really much ado about nothing." And when asked whether the Idol judge was drinking or under the influence of drugs during the appearance Ballard said: "Absolutely not."

FOX Network issued a statement on Monday in support of Abdul: "Rather than getting angry about these difficulties, or stopping the tour, Paula forged ahead and decided to have fun with the increasingly challenging situation. Unfortunately, because reporters and viewers were unaware of the situation, her humor was misconstrued.

Never short of humor, Abdul was happy to laugh about the audio anarchy with host Leno. "(It was) not my fault. I was having fun," Abdul said as she threw her hands in the air. She then quipped, "I answered the right questions in one of the cities."

The sixth season of American Idol premieres Tuesday at 8 p.m. ET on FOX.