Celebs Behaving Badly: Paula Abdul Is Leaving American Idol…We think?

Rumors have swirled around her departure since the arrival of another female judge on the show.  Randy Jackson, Paula Abdul and Simon Cowell may be a crowd, but we all know you can’t have two ladies cooking in the kitchen.

But Paula claims she is leaving the show strictly for financial reasons…like they aren’t offering her eough financial reasons to stay on the show.

Abdul dropped her online bombshell Tuesday evening, right before season-nine auditions begin Friday in Denver. That has the whiff of a pressure tactic on Abdul’s part, although boycotting the early auditions that skip from city to city might have been a less dramatic way to negotiate.

Her tweets, however, seemed to have an air of finality.

“With sadness in my heart, I’ve decided not to return” to Fox’s singing contest, Abdul said on her Twitter account. “I’ll miss nurturing all the new talent, but most of all being a part of a show that I helped from day 1 become an international phenomenon.”

There was a sense of closure, too, in a statement from Fox and producers FremantleMedia North America and 19 Entertainment.

The companies said Abdul was “an important part of the ‘American Idol’ family over the last eight seasons and we are saddened that she has decided not to return to the show.”

No more Paula?