The brother of the Paula Abdul-obsessed “American Idol” reject who OD’d outside the star’s LA home is blaming Abdul for crushing his sis ter’s dreams and sending her on a downward spiral.
Paula Goodspeed, 30, had withered away to just 78 pounds at the sad end of her life, brought on by eat ing disorders and a broken Hollywood heart, her brother, Charles McIntyre, told The Post yesterday.
Although the grieving sibling disputed tentative police reports that Goodspeed committed suicide in her car, McIntyre said his sister’s “Idol” tryout in 2005 crushed her dreams of stardom.
Goodspeed auditioned for Season 5 of the hit Fox reality show, and her train-wreck performance of “Proud Mary” brought jeers and cutting comments from the three “Idol” judges.
“[Abdul] didn’t speak up for her. She let everyone take her down,” McIntyre told The Post from his home in Maine.
“She [Abdul] said she was ‘speechless,’ when she could have said something in her defense.”
Earlier in that “Idol” episode, Goodspeed showed off life-size drawings she had made of Abdul and professed her admiration for the former Laker Girl.
Abdul was the most kind-hearted of the judges. Randy Jackson called Goodspeed’s performance “terrible,” and Simon Cowell mocked the singer’s orthodontic braces.
But Goodspeed looked confused and ultimately crushed when Abdul, her own idol, said she was “speechless” and explained that that was not “not a great thing” as she panned her performance. Jackson and Cowell’s comments sent her over the edge.
In a post-tryout interview her first comment was, “He can go f- – – himself,” referring to the abrasive Cowell. He had said he didn’t know how she could sing with “all that metal in her mouth.”
“I think Simon went way too far, I mean talking about her braces,” McIntyre, 36, fumed yesterday. “That was just uncalled for.”
Abdul’s spokesman declined comment.
Goodspeed left her native Oakland, Maine, five years ago chasing Tinseltown fame, according to McIntyre.
LAPD Detective Robert Bub said empty bottles of prescription medication were found this week in Goodspeed’s car, and estimated she weighed about 90 pounds.
“She was very thin,” he said.
There was no suicide note found in her car, Bub added.
McIntyre insisted that his sister’s death so close to Abdul’s house might have been coincidental.
“She could have pulled over on the side of the road for a rest,” McIntyre said.
While Goodspeed’s name is not in any prior LAPD reports, cop sources said she had been picked up for loitering in front of Abdul’s home in January and June.
Cops wrote no criminal reports on Goodspeed and sent her case to city mental health authorities, sources said.
Goodspeed tried out at least twice for “Idol” and claimed in her blog that she also auditioned for the Fox show “So You Think You Can Dance.”
Goodspeed’s mother, a retired nurse’s aide, had moved in with her daughter in Thousand Oaks, Calif., to lend moral support to the struggling performer, McIntyre said.
Mom and daughter had planned to move back to Maine this week and pack in Goodspeed’s dreams of fame.
“When someone sees you on ‘American Idol’ being told you’re no good . . . her career just went downtown after that,” McIntyre said.