Do You Remember: When Paula Abdul Was Confronted By Her Stalker on American Idol

It makes for "good TV", apparently...

(Content Warning: This issue discusses suicide, stalking, and harassment.)

In November 2008, a 30-year-old woman named Paula Goodspeed was found dead. Her body was found in her car. Reuters reported that prescription pills were found in the vehicle. "It appears to be a suicide by overdose," Detective Robert Bub of the Los Angeles Police Department told Reuters (via ABC News.) The car was found near the home of Paul Abdul, the singer, choreographer, and judge on American Idol.

It was quickly revealed that Goodspeed was infatuated with Abdul. CDs and pictures of Abdul were found in the car. According to The Associated Press, the license plate on her car read "ABL LV" and a photo of Abdul was hanging from the rear-view mirror. Los Angeles police officers were already familiar with Goodspeed, who had a history of harassing and stalking Abdul. Certainly, Abdul was familiar with her. Three years prior, Goodspeed had auditioned for Idol, a move that Abdul had protested at the time. She knew who this woman was and what a threat she could have been to her safety. Her own colleagues seemingly disagreed.

(Image via YouTube.)

By 2006, American Idol was in its fifth season and was undisputably one of the biggest shows on TV. It was the top-rated show for the 2005–06 season, and was one of the most watched of all seasons in the series' history. It had created a slew of bona fide stars, from Kelly Clarkson and Carrie Underwood to Jennifer Hudson and Fantasia Barrino. Gossip blogs and tabloid magazines/programming ruled the roost in the mid-2000s and Idol was an endless topic of obsession. If you weren’t watching it or talking about it, you were missing out.