Inside Paula Abdul and Janet Jackson’s 40-Year Friendship of Pure Love: ‘I Will Always Have a Debt of Gratitude for That Family’

When Paula Abdul stepped onto the red carpet at the 2026 American Music Awards on Monday, May 25, she carried with her four decades of memories—and at the heart of many of them is one woman: Janet Jackson.

The 63-year-old singer, dancer and choreographer told Us Weekly at the event that her gratitude for Jackson and the entire Jackson family runs deeper than fans might realize. It’s a friendship that began before either woman became a household name, and one that has quietly endured through residencies, sold-out world tours and the kind of life changes most of us can only imagine.

“We have crossed paths. We both have had residencies at the same time and have been able to catch up there,” Abdul told Us Weekly. “We’ve caught up in different countries. Yes, I will always have a debt of gratitude for that entire family.”

How it all began

Long before Paula Abdul was the pop goddess behind “Straight Up,” “Forever Your Girl” and “Opposites Attract,” she was a young dancer with big dreams and even bigger odds to overcome. Born three months premature, she battled collapsed lungs, a broken windpipe and hip dysplasia—conditions that would make a professional dance career seem impossible.

“For dancing, you need turn-out hips and turned-in hips,” Abdul told Us. “There’s nothing about what my dreams and what I was inspired by, but I believe—like a kid who believes in Santa Claus—that I could do it.”

That belief carried her from the San Fernando Valley to the sidelines of Los Angeles Lakers games as a cheerleader, and eventually into choreography. It was that work that brought her into Janet Jackson’s orbit in the mid-1980s, just as Jackson was preparing to step out from the long shadow of her famous family and claim her own creative voice.

The timing could not have been more pivotal. Jackson, who had spent her childhood charming audiences on Good Times, Diff’rent Strokes and Fame, was ready to redefine herself. She had appeared on Good Times starting in 1977 at just 11 years old, joined Diff’rent Strokes at 14 and reluctantly took a role on Fame in 1984 at her father’s urging. “My father wanted me to join Fame. I didn’t want to be on Fame,” Jackson once said. “I did it for my father.”

That experience was part of what made her 1986 album Control such a turning point—and what made Abdul’s role in it so meaningful.

A creative partnership that changed music

When Jackson released Control, the album did not just put her on the map, as Woman’s World previously reported. It rewired the blueprint for what a young woman in pop could be. With hits like “Nasty,” “What Have You Done For Me Lately,” “Control” and “When I Think of You,” Jackson was no longer Joe Jackson’s daughter or Michael’s little sister. She was, as she sang, the one in control.

And Paula Abdul was right there beside her, choreographing the moves that would define a generation.

Earlier this year, Abdul looked back on that era with the kind of warmth that only deep, lasting friendships can produce. “Celebrating 40 years of Control and an era that changed my life forever,” she wrote in a February Instagram post. “Watching Janet fully step into her power and creative voice during this time was such a beautiful experience. So many incredible memories from working together.”

For Abdul, choreographing for Jackson was not just a stepping stone to her own pop career—it was a creative collaboration that shaped how she understood movement, music and the power of two women lifting each other up. By the time Abdul released her own debut album, Forever Your Girl, in 1988, she had absorbed lessons from one of the most disciplined performers in the business. That album would go on to spawn five top-10 singles and go platinum seven times over.

Two careers, one quiet bond

What makes the Abdul-Jackson friendship so unusual in the world of celebrity is its consistency. Both women have weathered enormous highs and crushing lows in the public eye. Both have reinvented themselves more than once. And both, now in their 60s, are still performing, still selling out venues and still showing up for each other.

Abdul joked that these days it can be hard to “run into” such a “busy woman.” Jackson, who turned 60 this year, has been celebrating milestones of her own, including the 40th anniversary of Control. But when they do see each other—backstage in Las Vegas, on tour stops in other countries—it is all love.

Their bond is a quiet kind of celebrity friendship, the kind that does not generate tabloid headlines or social media drama. It is simply two women who have known each other since they were young, who helped each other become legends and who have stayed in each other’s lives ever since.

Still having “pinch me” moments

For Abdul, the perspective that comes with age has only deepened her appreciation—not just for Jackson, but for the unlikely arc of her own life. She is still, all these years later, surprised when her music shows up in the lives of today’s biggest stars.

Earlier this month, Meghan Markle set her eight-year wedding anniversary post on Instagram to Abdul’s 1988 hit “Forever Your Girl.” Abdul was floored.

“It was a pinch-me moment. Incredible. I literally had to read it a couple times to make sure,” she told Us. “I don’t take anything for granted, so like when little gems like that happen in my life, I’m like, ‘Wow.'”

When Us joked that “Forever Your Girl” would make the perfect wedding song for Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce, Abdul did not hesitate. “I’d be happy to oblige,” she said.

A lesson in lifelong friendship

There is something deeply encouraging about watching Paula Abdul, at 63, talk about her four-decade friendship with Janet Jackson with the same enthusiasm she had as a young choreographer on the rise. It is a reminder that the relationships we build in our 20s and 30s—the ones rooted in shared work, shared dreams and mutual respect—can carry us through every chapter that follows.

Abdul could not have predicted, as a girl with collapsed lungs and hip dysplasia, that she would one day choreograph for one of the biggest pop stars in the world. She could not have known that the young woman she was working with would become a lifelong friend. And she could not have imagined that, decades later, she would still be saying thank you.

“When I was a kid from the San Fernando Valley, there was nothing about me that said she’s going to be a star,” Abdul reflected. “My heart had so much love for music, for dance.”

That love—for the work, for the music and for the friend who walked the journey beside her—is still going strong.