Thanks for all the info on Paula. Knowing all that, now I find kind of sorry for her. She does seem like a genuinely nice person, and she does try her best to encourage the contestants.
Apparently she designs jewelry also, and gives each contestant a "good luck" charm of some sort.
That's nice of her.
She flew on the same plane as my mom did a couple years back. Paula was in first class and was one of the first ones off the plane, but waited for everyone on the plane and talked to everyone that wanted to talk to her and signed autographs. Very petite, even more so then I thought.
She very seldom says anything bad about the contestants performance. Pitchy is about as bad as she gets! lol I think that is one of the reasons for Simon Cowell being on the show, to take up her slack.