You’re probably making fun of me a little bit here, but I don’t care, because I think this is funny as hell. I have one of those novelty jars on my dresser that says “Souls Of Former Lovers.” Now I can totally picture Corey having a jar that says “Stalking Slush Fund.” But anyway, I really need to stop watching old “X-Files” eps in my spare time, because they’re making me more nutso than usual. Thanks for taking me as seriously as you have – you have more patience with me than I do. Not that that’s saying much …
I think everything that Dio just said sounds reasonable.
You have a good attitude about it all. You seem to favor one outcome over another, but seem open to hearing both sides. No one can reasonably demand anything more than that.
The unanswered question I have is: If Paula got the cell phone for Corey, why was she always calling his house, where his mom would answer, looking for him? Why wouldn’t she just call the cell phone?
That one just makes no sense to me. Frankly, I think all the “evidence” could as easily be false as be true; it’s all circumstantial and doesn’t have a lot of direct tie-in to Corey, or explanation for why he has some of it (like the cell phone bills or the clothing receipts). The only people who could corroborate it are the cell phone store guy (who was off-camera so we have no verification) and Corey’s two friends (who could be saying what they said for $$) and even Corey’s parents (who could be playing along to help their son get publicity). Even the rooms in her house that he described, or her dogs’ names, or even her house location, could easily be picked up from checking out publicly available info.
But what about the security that other contestants say would always accompany them when they left their house – which was under 24-hour security and nobody could enter or leave unknown? That, and why Paula would call his mom instead of the cell phone she’d given him for surreptitious phoning, does leave me scratching my head. And questioning his mother’s veracity, to be honest.
She called both. He called her too. He had both her numbers, and she his. They talked many times a day. I’m not sure how secure the Hilton was. Keep in mind there were still 32 constestants; this wasn’t the final 12. And the 7 who were interviewed expressed no surprise about Corey coming and going, but only about where he went.
But my questions to you are these: how did this 20-year-old street hustler pull together the resources and where-with-all to compile all these evidence trails? How did he build this network of inside informants and co-consipirators as basically a Hollywood tourist? How did he pay for his extra phone? How did he pay for his clothes? Who helped him produce all the forged documents, or did he do it himself? How did he find time to track down Paula’s address, learn how to lead someone directly to her home, find it at night, get her phone numbers (which I myself can’t find on Google), learn about her house, her dogs, and her bedrooms? Who stayed up all night entering data into a computer that would print out with phone numbers from various cities with the right area codes, reasonable time-stamps and charges? Where did he find a voice impersonator to leave a voice-mail message? How did he coax a reporter, his friends, and his own mother and father to lie for him? If not Paula, then who coached him on changing his clothing style, his haircut, his song choices, and so on? It seems to me that if he did all this on his own, then he is a genius. But he certainly doesn’t come across as one.
I’ll take a crack at that one Mama.
In Corey’s version, since we don’t have a Pauler version this is what we’re going with, m’kay? According to him, the help started when all 200 finalists got to H’wood, in order to get him into the magical top 12. This was when AI was paying for them all to be in a hotel for the competition, and the hotel did have some security as protection for the contestants, but they weren’t under virtual lock and key as they are later once they get to the top 12 Idol house. Remember Corey going out partying all night and blowing the lyrics in the auditions, which he famously ‘covered’ by turning into a Paula serenade? He, and the other contestants who accompanied him, couldn’t have pulled a night whoring and drinking like that once they made the final 12, but could and did during the earlier rounds.
So, the help consisting of phone calls, shopping and late night secret meetings started before the intense security part, until he made the final 32. Remember that although the show starts in January, they spend weeks showing the horrible first auditions and then the Hollywood stuff but don’t start the voting round competition until later. So there’s some time between auditioning, then hitting H’wood and making the 32, then coming back for live competition. Somewhere in there is when Corey, like all the other contestants, was living at home waiting for it to start, there’s your time frame for Paula to be calling him at his parents house, presumably when he didn’t answer the cell. They don’t move into Idol House until the top 12, so there were still a few weeks before the security got too tight for them to hang out.
He claims their relationship was roughly three months, others refuting it by saying “we’re overscheduled and never alone so he’s obviously lying” aren’t saying anything since they’re talking about once the final 12 level happens and he’s talking about before it.
Ooh, can I play? He was 22 then, he’s 24 now. Prior to his arrest for the sister-beating thing that got him kicked off the show, he had an arrest for writing bad checks, so ‘street hustler’ is a pretty apt nicname.
His network consisting of his two childhood buddies and his parents? What inside informants, the only arguably inside info I could see was the tip to sing “Foolish Heart” since Jackson played on that and would be likely to be favorable, sure that could have come from another source but it could have come from Paula too. What real insider information did he reveal?
Maybe Mom and Dad paid, maybe he stole it/them, we sure don’t know, but are you taking it as a given that he was broke just because he claimed to be? Why wouldn’t he say “I was broke and she had to pay for these things” to bolster his case? Of course he’d say it, it makes sense in context. And again, there’s no objective evidence that he didn’t have those things already, just his buddies’ word.
He’s had two years, he could have either learned how to dummy up phone bills or found someone to do it for him.
Finding her address might not have been that hard, go on enough “Tours to the Star’s Homes!” and they’ll point it out, rent a car and go back and familiarize yourself with the route. Are we absolutely positively sure there wasn’t a People piece on what Paula’s place looked like and such? The only thing that’s not easy to explain is the phone digits, and I dunno that I trust the smarmy Quiñones guy for independant verification exactly.
Either him or whoever he got to dummy up the bill, if it’s fake. I can’t imagine he couldn’t find the time in the two years since this allegedly happened.
I heard today, on one of the endless news segments about this, that Paula did indeed call him at the beginning when gossip was going around that he’d written a tell-all scandal book, and that message played was carefully edited to make it seem worse than it was. All she said, that we heard anyway, was that she was concerned, and hearing rumors, and not to talk to the press. Nothing about ‘Don’t tell people what WE did’ at all, just a generic ‘scandal is bad’ vibe.
Reporters can be fooled, and anxious for a chance to take a swipe at a ratings juggernaut on a different network. It’s pretty easy to get your own family and friends to lie for you, happens all the time, if he’s lying and in this for a second shot at fame/fortune, it’s not hard to fathom that his parents would want to support that quest in any way they can. Or maybe it’s true and they’re telling the truth, or maybe it’s not and they were lied to by their own son, or maybe it’s some halfway muddled up version of what we heard, but his own peeps backing him doesn’t equal evidence in my book.
Again, you’re taking his word for the style changes, we have no objective proof. It’s way easy to believe that a contestant would get a haircut and a new outfit for their tv performance, and the song choice ‘tips’ could be retroactively construed. Corey picks “Foolish Heart” and Randy says “I used to work with Steve Perry” as part of the favorable critique, two years later it’s pretty easy to turn that around and say “Paula told me to” even though the words outta his mouth that night were “Really, I didn’t know that.” He claims they went shopping for CDs to help him with song choices, no one witnessed them doing so though.
I can agree with that, with the possible exception that it’s not so much “all this” on his own, as a lot of possible stuff with not a lot of hard proof. Granted, Paula’s not stupid, she would have done everything she could to leave as little evidence to come back and bite her in the ass as possible. But so much of Corey’s story seems to build together, you have to take his word on X for Y to seem plausible, which leads to Z, and I’m not a huge Paula fan but I’m too skeptical to take any of this without a ginormous grain of salt.
Incidentally, the radio here in Atlanta was discussing this today when I was on my way home from work. They were playing different clips from last night’s show and summarizing things about the evidence. One DJ believes it’s true, the other believes it’s not.
I lean towards the “it’s bullshit” side. I just don’t really see what’s in it for Paula, at any stage of the game. Hearing him sing on Idol, it’s obvious that if he wins, it’s a travesty and a joke. (They played clips of him on Idol as well.)
Here’s the worst part. They played part of one of his songs from the new CD on the radio. :eek: :eek: :eek: NO…nonononono, it was BAD. It wasn’t just bad music - though it was. It wasn’t just a weak voice - though it was. The worst part was that the lyrics were absolutely insipid, and I say this as someone who has gotten enjoyment on occasion from listening to other “teen idol” types. His song was about him meeting Paula - getting the phone number, calling, being nervous and wondering why she would want to talk to him. Every few measures there was a little “Straight Up!” thrown in - a throwback to one of Paula’s songs. My ears are still bleeding.
Something is just not right about the story. While it seems he has tons of evidence, it’s taken him a long time to come forward. Lib, you mention him not being able to gain access to all of these places and people and not having time to really research everything. He’s had a ton of time. What’s he been doing (aside from making the most god-awful CD evah) since he was kicked off Idol? What better way to get revenge on Idol than to completely sabotage the reputation of Paula and the show?
This is it for me. I don’t lurve Paula or anything, but she’s never been accused of being dumb. This whole incident smacks of stupidity. Only someone extremely desperate (and come on, don’t tell me Paula freakin’ Abdul is desperate) or some kinda wacky would involve themselves so deeply in a situation that anyone could see from 5000 miles away would be [Ashleys]scandalous [/Ashleys].
She might have helped him, and that in itself is wrong. There have been rumors for years that Simon has slept with a few of the Idol contestants, and no one bats an eye. Both judges would be wrong for such behavior. You cannot tell me, though, that Paula had any illusions that Corey was going to win Idol.
I think the rumor was that he was sleeping with Kimberly Locke? I have absolutely no proof of any kind. 
If Simon was tagging a contestant, it HAD to have been Goat Girl. She sucked and he continued pimping her and pimping her and pimping her. Plus, wasn’t she the wild card he brought back??? I don’t think he was, though.
As for Pauler & Corey, some of his story makes sense but a lot of it doesn’t. Paula’s not the sharpest knife in the drawer but I really don’t think she’s that stupid, nor is he so hot that she couldn’t restrain herself.
I am so freaking glad that Scott is gone!!! I never have to look at his disgusting head again and that makes me happy as a lark. His gross habit of wearing button-down shirts that show his foul chest hair was making me turn the channel.
It’s Bo from here on out!!! Go baby!!! I am voting for you whenever I can get through!!!
Woo Hoo!!! No more Scott!!!
Yeah, I’m way too happy about this. 
I was offline last night so I’m late to the party but let me say a belated “Yay!”.
When I first started hearing the allegations about Paula I thought it was ridiculous. She can’t be that desperate or stupid that she would do something like that and leave a trail. AI was a big comeback for her and it’s hard to believe she would risk it for a kid who really isn’t all that. Unless she really was on drugs then.
I do believe that Paula may want to help the performers do well and may possibly have overstepped the bounds to that end, which is/was inappropriate but as for actually having had an affair with Clark, I would be more skeptical of that.
As has been stated, she really couldn’t have done too much to help him in the competetion except give some advice on song choice and clothing. She gives everyone almost equal praise so it’s not like she could sing only his praises and cut everyone else down and not have everyone immediately know something was up. As for what she actually says, does anyone even listen to her blather?
I’d like to thank the Aca…no wait ~rustles through some papers~ That’s wrong.
I’m so proud of you! ~sways unsteadily and clasps hands together~
I think the whole Corey thing is a pile of steaming cow poo.
First, the timing is just a little coincidental. Why didn’t he unload this when he got canned from Idol? That would have been a perfect “up yours!” on his part.
Secondly, all the reports about Paula’s medical condition state she has been in severe pain for quite some time. If Paula was in all this pain, would she honestly be interested in boinking a young twentysomething? Furthermore, Corey never once said she was in any type of pain. Don’t you think he would try to use that as “evidence” to back him up?
Am I overanalyzing this? 
I think we’re all overanalyzing this. But hey, it’s scurrilous and scandalous and thus far more interesting to talk about than stuff that might, I dunno, mean something to somebody.
I think he’s lying to shill his book and CD. Everyone assesses evidence differently, and credibility is a big part of it. I just don’t find him credible. Which isn’t difficult since he’s a known liar already. But hey, if anyone else wants to believe him, that’s cool; that’s how we end up with hung juries. (Just not juries with Hung on them. Please.)
I likes my scandal scurrilous, I do!
About Paula’s chronic pain/back issues being a point…have we pretty much decided that we buy that whole story? I think I might have missed a chapter there.
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Paula is the pretty wacky eyecandy judge who exists to love-bomb the contestants and provide a recognizable name.
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Paula gets increasingly weird, slurring and stammering and slipping and sliding, we pretty much decide she’s wasting away in Margueritaville.
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Rumors about substance abuse surface, causing Camp Paula to tell the tragic story of the dark side of cheerleading, and the chronic lifelong pain that can result from a pyramid gone horribly awry. Oh, and there’s a syndrome, that’s it, a rare syndrome that no one’s ever heard of that causes folks to abuse substances and appear stuck on stupid.
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After the revelation of all the deep personal medical details, Paula appears amazingly sober and coherent, 'tis a miracle!
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Corey flings poo.
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We decide that all that chronic pain that caused the substance overloading would have prevented the hot monkey loving? Did I miss a step?
If she was indeed in acute pain for the last 20 years, it’s not very likely that she’s never had relationships, right? There wasn’t a miracle cure that occurred after A Current Affair busted her, so her reformed act doesn’t fly, either. What am I not getting?
Enough of Paula’s drugs. Fly that high and it all makes sense.
To make it easier, it’s Post #7, in the linked thread.