Photo: Mike Windle/Getty Images
Paula Abdul has reached a personal settlement with American Idol and So You Think You Can Dance producer Nigel Lythgoe. According to court docket paperwork obtained by the Associated Press and People, Abdul filed to finish the lawsuit she filed in December 2023 that accused him of sexually assaulting her two instances (as soon as whereas she was judging American Idol within the early 2000s and as soon as across the time she started judging So You Think You Can Dance in 2015). In an amended criticism submitted this October, Abdul additional alleged that he had sexually assaulted her on a 3rd event. The case was beforehand scheduled to go to trial in August 2025, however is now anticipated to be dismissed.
“I’m grateful that this chapter has efficiently come to an in depth and is now one thing I can now put behind me,” Abdul mentioned in a press release on December 13. “This has been an extended and hard-fought private battle. I hope my expertise can serve to encourage different girls, dealing with comparable struggles, to beat their very own challenges with dignity and respect, in order that they can also flip the web page and start a brand new chapter of their lives.” She beforehand settled with the manufacturing corporations behind American Idol and SYTYCD — initially named as co-defendants — in April.
Lythgoe, who has denied all of Abdul’s allegations and maintained that their interactions had been “solely platonic,” additionally addressed the settlement in a December 13 assertion. “We reside in a troubling time the place an individual is now robotically assumed to be responsible till confirmed harmless, a course of that may take years,” he mentioned. “That is why, like Paula, I’m glad to have the ability to put this behind me. I do know the reality and that provides me nice consolation.”
In the months after Abdul filed her unique criticism, Lythgoe was sued for sexual assault by 4 different nameless accusers, together with two girls who filed a joint declare over allegations tied to their time competing on the fact present All American Girl in 2003. Per Rolling Stone, Lythgoe was dismissed from the All American Girl swimsuit this July, with a decide ruling {that a} regulation that lifts the statute of limitations for sure sexual-abuse claims didn’t apply to their allegations. Lythgoe celebrated the choice, saying in a press release on the time, “I hope and anticipate that this would be the first of many comparable wins as I proceed to struggle to clear my identify.”
