Paula Abdul has always been a free agent – you can’t constrain her with things like rules or basic human logic.

But now she really is free. She’s free of the American Idol machine, with its cynical attitude to creativity and willingness to give her millions of dollars for doing hardly anything.

Apparently Paula Abdul could now be snapped up by So You Think You Can Dance, although she’s probably holding out for So You Think You Can Stare Off Into Space For Great Stretches Of Time While Softly Giggling At A Joke That Only You Can Hear. She’s got expertise there.

We probably owe Paula Abdul an apology here. When it was announced last week that Paula Abdul was quitting American Idol, we thought that – if she really was quitting at all – she’d end up being boiled for glue. Not even televisually speaking, either – we literally thought that someone would club Paula Abdul over the head and actually boil her down for glue. In real life.

But we forgot something important about Paula Abdul. People actually seem to like her. No, we don’t know why either. But they do. People like Paula Abdul so much that they’re quite happy to fill their cars up with pictures of her and then kill themselves outside her house. And you’re lucky if people even remember when it’s your birthday. She’s in a different league.

So it’s no surprise to see that Paula Abdul probably won’t stay unemployed for long. According to reports, both Dancing With The Stars and So You Think You Can Dance are mad keen for Paula Abdul to contribute some of her trademark dribble-flecked non-committal craziness to their shows, too. The Chicago Tribune reports:

ABC chief Stephen McPherson had contacted Abdul to say that he’d love to see her at ABC. “We would love to have her on ‘Dancing [With the Stars],’ as a contestant, participant or judge. I think she’s a huge talent… We have no formal plans,” he explained. Nigel Lythgoe, producer of the Fox show “So You Think You Can Dance,” has said he would welcome her “without question.”

It makes perfect sense for Paula Abdul to scooch over to a dance-based version of American Idol – after all, she knows the format inside-out and she calls herself a choreographer. Admittedly she’s a choreographer who worked on a film based on a line of freakishly sexualised, giant-headed plastic dolls for a few weeks until she was inevitably sacked, but that still sort of counts. Doesn’t it? Doesn’t that count?

But anyway, whether Paula Abdul decides to opt for Dancing With The Stars or So You Think You Can Dance, it’s important that she doesn’t allow her new management to enter into a fatally hard-line contract negotiation after a couple of years. Because if she screws this up, Paula Abdul had better hope that someone invents a reality TV show about women who sing duets with animated cats who – it’s heavily implied – they’re engaged in a graphic sexual relationship with. Because that’s literally the only other thing she can do with any level of competency.

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