Paula Abdul

Paula Abdul was born in San Fernando Valley, California. At the age of eight older, she began her dancing lessons. Van Nuys High School was where she was the senior class president and also the head cheerleader. She graduated from high school in the year 1980. Following graduation, she began college at Cal State Northridge. There she majored in radio and TV. 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. The Lakers enlisted The Jacksons to choreograph their 1984 "Torture" video, which was the first of a number of movies and videos she would choreograph. She branched out into singing on her debut album, "Forever Your Girl" with a mediocre sales performance until the hit song "Straight Up" exploded onto the charts in December 1988 and she's been a household dancer ever since, aided by her time as a judge on the hit series American Idol (2002). Her father, Harry Abdul, is Sephardic Jewish from Syria. Her mother, who is also Jewish, was born and was raised in Canada. Her parents were born in Canada, Brazil, Syria and Brazil. These diverse backgrounds have led to very various stories being told in the news about her country of origin or religious beliefs. She is the daughter of Harry Abdul, a former Brazilian livestock trader and Lorainne Abdul, a former assistant to Billy Wilder in film direction. Since the age of seven, she sang and danced in community musical theatre groups while traveling around America. She was enrolled in tap dance classes and she was awarded a scholarship to tap dancing school. Later in life she attended Cal State Northridge College, where she studied in Broadcast radio. In the course of her studies, she auditioned for the Los Angeles Lakers NBA Cheerleading team. That led her to a spot as a cheerleader on the team. The team earned fifty dollars per game during her freshman year.