Heavy/Getty Former "American Idol" judge Paula Abdul
Long before pop star Paula Abdul was approached to be one of the original judges on “American Idol,” she heard about the show from an unlikely source: a psychic who predicted it was in her future and included many details Abdul ignored at the time but now realizes were spot-on.
Abdul has wowed audiences with the story in recent months, most recently during a chat with classic country star Clint Black on his talk show, “Talking in Circles With Clint Black,” which first aired on the Circle Network on October 7, 2023.
Here’s what you need to know:
Paula Abdul Details Experience With Psychic Three Years Before ‘American Idol’ Premiered
Abdul shared an Instagram video featuring a fascinating excerpt from her conversation with Black, who she called an old friend.
“I remember getting a gift certificate from someone I worked with,” Abdul began. “The psychic told me that I would be doing a talent show, and this is three years prior to ‘American Idol.’ And I kept saying no, no, no, no, no. ‘Cause I’m thinking ‘Star Search.’ My only reference to (a talent show) is ‘Star Search.'”
Abdul said such a show wasn’t on her radar or of interest because she had been busy pitching other TV shows and writing songs, so she said she was all but ignoring the psychic’s prediction, but the woman insisted it would come to fruition.
“She goes, ‘Honey, you willed it to happen,'” Abdul recalled the psychic saying. “‘It’s going to be the biggest thing in the world. You think your music’s big? Nothing compared to…you have no idea.'”
Abdul recalled the psychic saying it would be “the hardest job of your life” and that she’d be “sitting next to an a**hole from across the pond.”
Stunned by the level of detail the woman provided, Black exclaimed, “Really?”
It’s a story Abdul has shared multiple times in 2023, including on a March episode of “The Jennifer Hudson Show,” when she told former “Idol” contestant Jennifer Hudson about the encounter.
Talking to Hudson, Abdul recalled that the psychic included specific details about the future TV show during their reading, saying that the difficult colleague from “across the pond” would be a “thorn in my side” and that there would also be “a gentleman to the right of me that I already know,” even adding that his name started with the letter R. Abdul also said the psychic told her would be at a studio that started with the letter F.
Three years later, in 2002, Abdul did find herself sitting in between notoriously acerbic Simon Cowell, a British record executive, and music producer Randy Jackson at FOX Studios for a brand new talent show called “American Idol.” The show was a runaway hit, crowning superstar-in-the-making Kelly Clarkson as its first winner. By the following year, the show was drawing a massive audience of 38 million viewers per episode, according to USA Today.
Paula Abdul Recently Joined Online Psychic Network as a Partner
In June, during an appearance on the podcast “Inside Of You with Michael Rosenbaum,” Abdul went even more in-depth about her psychic encounter, revealing that the woman who made the “American Idol” prediction was Los Angeles psychic Dolores Cardelucci, who gained notoriety a decade ago as a sought-after advisor to celebrities and who frequently appeared on Extra TV.
In 2014, when Cardelucci was 82, she told The Hollywood Reporter that she considered herself a “business reader,” specializing in predicting “career stuff” for celebrities including Abdul, Brad Pitt, Avril Lavigne and Kelsey Grammer.
At the time of Abdul’s first reading, she ignored Cardelucci’s predictions about “American Idol,” she told Rosenbaum, in part because she was far more interested in the psychic’s insights about her dad’s future health issues, which also came to fruition.
Though Abdul told Rosenbaum she’d only been to one or two psychics before her initial reading with Cardelucci, she has since become a big fan of tapping into intuitive guidance. In February, she signed on as a partner in the psychic website Psychics1on1, which launched in 2020 and has 3,300 “spiritual advisors” on-call for its clients, according to a release.
“These amazing people who have the gift of being psychic, or past life regression, numerology, all of this, is that there’s a beautiful comfort that comes out of knowing that no matter what, it’s going to be okay,” Abdul said in her profile on the site. “And if you can have someone who can guide you into that mindset that you can really latch onto and trust… These people have the gift of guiding you through to make the best out of any situation. You just have to be willing to be brave and ask for the help.”
Abdul served as a judge on “American Idol” for eight years, from 2002 to 2009, per Entertainment Tonight, but has returned to the show for guest appearances multiple times.