Music|Paula Abdul Accuses Nigel Lythgoe of Sexual Assault During ‘American Idol’
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/12/30/arts/music/paula-abdul-lawsuit-nigel-lythgoe.html
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Ms. Abdul filed a lawsuit against Mr. Lythgoe, a producer of the reality show, that accuses him of assaulting her in an elevator. He called the allegations “false” and “deeply offensive.”
Paula Abdul filed a lawsuit on Friday against Nigel Lythgoe, a former longtime producer of “American Idol,” accusing him of sexually assaulting her when she was a judge on the reality show in the early 2000s.
In the lawsuit, Ms. Abdul says that during one of the early seasons of “American Idol,” Mr. Lythgoe shoved her against the wall of a hotel elevator, grabbed her genitals and breasts and began “shoving his tongue down her throat.” Ms. Abdul said in the lawsuit that she tried to push Mr. Lythgoe away, and that when the elevator doors opened, she ran to her hotel room and called one of her representatives in tears.
Mr. Lythgoe helped turn “American Idol” into a phenomenon in the United States in 2002 after developing an earlier iteration of the show in Britain. He was also a creator of “So You Think You Can Dance,” on which he appeared as a judge for 16 seasons.
In a statement on Saturday, Mr. Lythgoe denied the allegations, saying that he would “fight this appalling smear with everything I have.”
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