• June 19, 1962
• Paula Abdul began her career as a cheerleader for the Los Angeles Lakers. Working Lakers games was a great way to meet people in showbiz.
• She rose to prominence in the 1980s as a highly sought-after choreographer. Abdul's choreography resume includes Janet Jackson's Control videos and Tracey Ullman's TV show.
• Her six #1 hits on the Hot 100 were written by three different songwriters who you've probably never heard of: Elliot Wolff, Oliver Leiber and Peter Lord. Wolff wrote "Straight Up" and "Cold Hearted;" Leiber wrote "Forever Your Girl" and "Opposites Attract;" Lord wrote "Rush, Rush" and "The Promise of a New Day."
  
  Paula's first recording session was for the song "Knocked Out," which she worked on with the bigwigs L.A. Reid and Babyface. According to Leiber, they were not kind to Paula and she needed a lot of encouragement in her next sessions. "I needed to be a really positive person," he said in a Songfacts interview. "So, no amount of hours were too long, no amount of takes were too many, and there was lots of cajoling and coaxing and joking. We were going to get this one way or the other."
• After a series of setbacks, Abdul saw renewed fame and success as an original judge on American Idol in the 2000s, which she left after the eighth season. She was subsequently a judge on the first season of the American version of The X Factor.
• She was married to the actor Emilio Esrtevez from 1992-94.
• Paula Abdul was diagnosed with the painful nerve condition RSD in 2004. She originally began feeling chronic pain after a cheerleading accident when she was just 17.
• Paula told US OK! Magazine that she struggled with self-acceptance in her younger days. "My life experiences have been such a blessing to me. They''ve taught me to love myself, and to love all of my glorious imperfections,' she said. "When I really started to accept myself - short dancer, quirky sense of humor, weird laugh - it helped me to start celebrating all my idiosyncrasies."
• Abdul is about 5 feet tall, about 6 inches shorter than the typical cheerleader. When she auditioned to be a Laker Girl at age 17, there were about 700 other girls - almost all taller - vying for the 12 spots. Her modern dance style won over the judges, and she was not just picked, but also became a choreographer. A justifiably immodest Abdul told Q magazine in 1991: "I changed the whole face of cheerleading. Up to then, cheerleading was shaking pom-poms, rah-rah-rah and beautiful girls just jumping up and down. I got rid of the pompoms and that stereotypical tits-and-ass approach. I wanted the crowd to see serious dancing."

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