Delirious divas on the decline
By GINA VIVINETTO
Published May 4, 2005
What is it about our beloved 1980s divas? Paula Abdul is only the latest in a string of singers from the era who have fallen on hard times or have exhibited bizarre behavior. After a decade (or two) of belting out dance hits, why have so many of our 1980s divas driven themselves off the the deep end? Nervous breakdowns, drugs, traffic mayhem! Spin the wheel and give yourself a point for every sordid detail you remember about their indiscretions.
Paula Abdul: She was forever our girl in 1988, but her erratic antics as a judge on American Idol and a recent hit-and run traffic violation have piqued concern that the woman behind Straight Upain't straight. Is Abdul on drugs? Abdul tells this week's People she's not -- exactly. "I'm not addicted to pills of any kind," she says. However, after years of suffering with pain, which began with a cheerleading accident when she was 17 and worsened with several car accidents, Abdul, who also in the article discusses her eating disorder, says she was taking pills for years but isn't now. She does, however, get a weekly shot of Enbrel, a medication used to treat arthritis and psoriasis.
Mariah Carey: So what if Carey didn't become a star until 1990? Her meltdown is one for the record books: hospitalized twice in 2001 for a nervous breakdown after posting rants on her Web site about needing time off, performing an impromptu striptease on TRL and finally breaking dishes and glasses in a New York hotel room and stomping on broken shards as her mother phoned 911 (with Carey screaming bloody hell in the background). Though Carey was checked into a hospital with wrists bandaged, her publicist denied it was a suicide attempt.
Whitney Houston: Can you say train wreck? Remember when the most interesting thing about Whitney Houston was the fact that she had absolutely no rhythm ? Back in the 1980s, when she sang How Will I Know? in that goofy wig, shimmying from side-to-side in that video, who would have thought she would marry bad boy Bobby Brown and become the world's most notorious coke ho? Then along came rehab stints, airport pot busts, anti-Semitic rants and expletives during interviews. Houston, sued by her late father for more than $100-million, has been off the chain for so long, we barely remember her first scandal: the rumors that she and longtime best friend and personal assistant Robyn D. Crawford (still on the payroll as of the 1997 flick Cinderella ) were lovers.
Janet Jackson: Before the world got its gander at her bejeweled boobie (see: Super Bowl, half-time w/Justin, 2004), Jackson already displayed the family penchant for perviness by showing how she took a 1980s need for Controlup a notch by demanding both male and female lovers on 1998's kinky S&M laced The Velvet Rope. (To think, Jackson was once sweet young Penny on the 1970s Good Times). Also, it's kind of weird to have a secret marriage for a decade. (See: divorce from Rene Elizondo, 2000).
Madonna: Not that she's ever been normal, what with beginning a career by rolling around in a wedding dress and wearing rosary beads while singing about sin. However, Madonna made some fans who had her best interests at heart raise their eyebrows when she posed nude in the Sex book with Vanilla Ice and began talking in that dippy fake British accent that sounded like Mary Poppins long before marrying Guy Ritchie and actually living in England. Also, why do we have to call you Esther? Best new Madonna quote, regarding raising children: "I don't have time to be creative." Ahhh, so that explains American Life.
Tiffany: In the 1980s she was the squeaky clean mall queen behind the hits I Think We're Alone Now and Could've Been. After a fall from the charts and the dwindle of fame, Tiffany hit the Vegas circuit in the early 1990s and took a stab at the country music scene without success. The 30-year-old wife and mom had had enough of being a has-been in 2002 and did what any former teen star would do for a comeback: bared it all for Playboy And, gosh, it worked!
-- Gina Vivinetto gina@tampabay.com