Abdul says injury prevents live performances

updated 2:32 p.m. ET Feb. 3, 2008

SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. - Paula Abdul, who has a new song with fellow “American Idol” judge Randy Jackson, blames a plane mishap for keeping her out of the musical arena for more than a decade.

“I’ve been really, really blessed and fortunate and it’s really, really poignant for me to come back now,” Abdul, who is one of the pre-Super Bowl performers, told The Associated Press on Saturday.

Abdul is featured on the first single off the new album from Jackson, due out next month. The song is titled “Dance Like There’s No Tomorrow.”

Abdul says an emergency plane landing that caused her injury in 1992 — she calls it a “plane crash” — was a key reason why she abandoned her multiplatinum singing career (she hasn’t released a new album since 1995).

“I had four plates and fourteen cervical spinal surgeries,” Abdul said while she picked up items Saturday at The Retreat at Super Bowl XLII, a celebrity gifting suite. “It all happened during the time that I disappeared and no one knew where I went. For five and a half years, I went through paralysis, the worst experience, and then I came back on ‘American Idol,’ that was my first time back out there.”

Abdul decided to return to music when Jackson asked her to be one of the artists on “Randy Jackson’s Musical Club, Vol. 1.”

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“Everything felt right. The song was amazing,” said Abdul, who added that she just finished a video for the song: “I’m dancing — wait to you see me,” she said. “I’m doing things that you won’t believe, that I don’t even believe.”

She’s already started work on a new album that she expects to be released by the summer.

As for her other job, “American Idol,” Abdul claims that this season’s talent is the strongest yet.

“All the fat is trimmed, meaning that it’s prime rib the whole lot,” she said. “If we do it right and America does it right there could be a top twelve that are of the likes of Daughtry, Kelly, Carrie, I’m telling, you’re in for an amazing season.”

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