Love her or hate her, fans of American Idol can’t deny that Paula Abdul ever provided a lack of things to talk about. Whether it was her loopy phrasing, her forays into selling jewelry, her reality show, or the continual rumors that she was not the “just say no” type, the perils of Paula were the longest running storyline on America’s top-rated show.

Here are some of the great moments and controversies in Abdul’s eight-year run on Idol (cue disco version of “The Way We Were”):

Corey Clark: The most serious Paula-related controversy was the charge made by Season Two contestant Corey Clark that he was seduced by the judge. Clark’s credibility was about as weak as it comes (he was kicked off Idol after being arrested). But while the show backed Paula up, the producers also instituted new guidelines spelling out just how close judges and singers were allowed to get, and one suspects they weren’t aimed at Randy Jackson. Paula had a long track record of regarding attractive young male singers the way a wolf might regard a pork chop.

Bad advice: Season Five auditioner Marcus Behling made the judges cringe with a laborious version of Michael Jackson‘s “She’s Out of My Life.” When the horrified judges ask the stock question of whether he has had any vocal training, Behling responds that he can’t understand what the problem is, since he learned everything he knows from the instructional DVD put out by Paula and Randy.

Constantine is a man: During Season Four, Paula told Constantine Maroulis, who is sort of a man, that he had just given his “best male performance.”

Moved to tears: Paula wasn’t the most coherent judge even when she was calm, so you can imagine how she sounded after a stellar performance by Season Five’s Elliott Yamin. For reasons never made clear, she began crying not long after Elliott finished singing and was still sobbing when it came time for her critique. Eventually she blurted out something about being proud of his evolution on the show, while Elliot stood there and tried not to look concerned.

Paula in the morning: As part of a series of interviews promoting Season Six, Abdul appeared on a Seattle morning show via satellite in early 2007 and appeared even crazier than usual, giggling, slurring her words, and appearing not to understand any of the questions that were asked of her. The incident was blamed on the ever-popular “exhaustion” and Abdul’s inability to clearly understand the questioners.

Hey Paula: Perhaps looking ahead to a post-Idol future, Abdul headlined her own reality show in 2007. Hey Paula was your basic slice-of-celebrity-life series, but while the best shows in this genre try to humanize their stars, Abdul mostly came across as temperamental, self-important, and an abuser of her employees. There was no second season.

Salad days: The average Paula Abdul critique was a run-on sentence that cudgeled together words of positivity before becoming lost in the swamps of incoherence. But once in a while, she was pithy, if still nonsensical. On one occasion, when asked about the singers in danger of being voted off, she responded “Simon said because one of them ate pizza and the other ate salad.” That cleared everything up.

Oh, that Omaha nightlife: What happens if there’s an American Idol audition and one of the judges is not present? If it’s Season Seven in Omaha, Simon Cowell and Randy simply start without Paula, who finally appeared midway through the day with a dog-ate-my-homework excuse. Her bout of hiccuping and decision to arm-wrestle a female auditioner gave some hint as to what might have delayed her.

Tragedy: No joking here: a former Idol auditioner named Paula Goodspeed (the woman had changed her name to honor her hero Abdul) committed suicide on the street near Abdul’s home, ending three years of disturbing attempts to contact the judge. While the incident was hardly Abdul’s fault, it couldn’t help but add to the overall sense of drama surrounding her, and she didn’t help matters by issuing an angry statement accusing the producers of ignoring the threat posed by Goodspeed.

Everybody loves David: Taking the expression “You’re so cute I could just eat you up” to new levels, Paula told pint-sized Idol contestant David Archuleta that she wanted to “squish your head off and dangle you from my rearview mirror.”

Paula looks into the future: During Top Five week in Season Seven, Paula’s critique of Jason Castro‘s first performance went on to include her opinions regarding his second performance…which he had yet to give. Castro looked downcast, as if he sensed the fix was clearly in; Ryan Seacrest and the producers gave a mealy-mouthed explanation regarding the “mistake” (what could you really say?); and Castro went on to sing every bit as badly as Paula had predicted he would.

Color by numbers: The longest-running Idol storyline, the “feud” between Simon and Paula, had its occasional payoffs for viewers, such as the parody video that ran at the end of Season Two which purported to show them sharing a passionate kiss. But oftentimes, the judges acted as if it was all about them. This past season, Paula interrupted a critique to present Cowell with crayons and a coloring book, and he proceeded to draw a mustache on her while Allison Iraheta tried to sing.

She’s just here for the music: With an hour to kill on the results show every week, Abdul was permitted during this past season to remind us that she is still a working recording artist of sorts. But the lip-syncing of her current single “I’m Just Here For the Music” only served to remind viewers of how strange it is that the judge of a singing competition couldn’t possibly sing live herself.

Tags: american idol, paula abdul