Los Angeles—In what has escalated into one of Hollywood’s bigger she said-she said battles of the last several years, pop megastar Rihanna is being accused by former pop star Paula Abdul of completely ripping off her 1989 music video “Forever Your Girl” and filming what amounts to a virtually shot-for-shot remake of it in Rihanna’s new video for her song “Roc Me Out.”

Portions of Rihanna’s video have leaked online, and it does seem like her newest video bears some resemblance to the former “American Idol” judge and ex-Mrs. Emilio Estevez’s hit title song off her debut album released in 1988.

Indeed, the newest video from Rihanna even features actors Trevor Wright, Elijah Wood and Nikki Cox, all of whom appeared in Abdul’s video and were all children when it was shot, playing strikingly similar roles as in the earlier video. A spokesman for Rihanna issued a statement saying, in part “no one involved in the creative and inspiring filming of Rihanna’s video for ‘Roc Me Out’ was even aware that Paula Abdul had an album, let alone a video, back in the late 1980s, and had no indication that the amazing visuals that were filmed for Rihanna’s video for ‘Roc Me Out’ could possibly even begin to resemble something she (Abdul) said she created. Rihanna’s creative team is looking into these allegations, but are having a hard time believing that music videos were around in the 20^th century.”
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