Paula Abdul

Paula Abdul grew up in the San Fernando Valley, California. At eight, she started taking dance classes. Van Nuys High School was her high school. She was also the top cheerleader and class president for senior year. After graduation in 1980, she enrolled in college at Cal State Northridge, majoring in radio and television. After joining the L.A. Lakers cheerleaders, she became head cheerleader/choreographer after only a few months, eventually dropping out of college to dance and choreograph full-time. She was recruited by The Jacksons to choreograph their 1984 "Torture" video, which was the first in a long list of movies and videos she choreographed. After her debut album "Forever Your Girl" started singing, she turned to singing and became a popular performer and dancer. The stint she held as an American Idol judge (2002) has made her more well-known as a performer and dancer. Her father (Harry Abdul), is Sephardic Jewish and hails from Syria. Her mother is also Jewish and was born in Canada. Her parents have lived in Syria, Brazil, and Canada - and this varied background has contributed to incredibly different stories in the press about her ethnicity or religion. She is the daughter of Harry Abdul, a former Brazilian livestock trader and Lorainne Abdul, a former assistant to Billy Wilder in film direction. At the age of seven, she sang and danced in community musical theatre ensembles as she traveled all over America. Tap dance classes were taken as well, in which she received a scholarship at a tap dancing classes. In the future, she attended Cal State-Northridge College in which she majored in Broadcast radio. She was a candidate to be an athlete for the Los Angeles Lakers NBA Basketball Cheerleading team.