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MTV News' Most Viewed Stories Of 2011: Nos. 10-6

Posted 12/28/11 8:00 am EST by in Best Of, Year End 2011

It's that time of year when we look back to see what stories really popped in 2011. From happy stories like Beyonce's big VMA baby bump reveal to sad stories like the tragic passing of Amy Winehouse, we were working hard in the MTV Newsroom to bring you all the news you were craving. Below are numbers 10 through six in our countdown of the most viewed stories of the year from MTV News. We'll have the top five for you tmorrow.

10. Kim Kardashian Files For Divorce (240K)
It was the early Christmas gift that just keeps on giving for tabloid editors and gossip bloggers. When Kim Kardashian filed for divorce from her husband of 72 days, Kris Humphries, everyone sort of lost their minds. The announcement inspired a major public backlash, as everyone with intact brain cells felt like the curtain had been pulled back on the Kardashian reality empire. Accusations that the couple's entire relationship had been faked for the cameras abounded and the public felt duped by the massive, millions-making wedding spectacular that aired on E! Of course, momager Kris Jenner was conveniently on her book tour when the announcement was made and denied the claims.

"After careful consideration, I have decided to end my marriage. I hope everyone understands this was not an easy decision," Kim told MTV News in a statement. "I had hoped this marriage was forever but sometimes things don't work out as planned. We remain friends and wish each other the best." The thing is, they do not remain friends: Humphries recently counter-filed for an annulment from Kim claiming fraud. If you are at all interested in watching the one-time couple's true love come undone, E! is currently airing "Kourtney & Kim Take New York," which focuses largely on the downfall of the Kardashian-Humphries relationship.

Read on for more. Read More...

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Bon Iver To Appear In Workout DVD

Posted 12/27/11 1:54 pm EST by in Music, Video

Bon Iver

The above headline is brought to you by the Weird Stories You’d Never Think You’d See in a Million Years Department of When Hell Freezes Over University.

Actually, it comes courtesy of the Eau Claire, Wisconsin, Leader-Telegram (via Huffington Post), which reports that the Grammy-nominated indie outfit fronted by Justin Vernon appears in “On the Road,” Chippewa Valley, WI, personal trainer Jeff Rogers’ fitness DVD hitting stores in early 2012.

And this is no joke. The acclaimed band’s appearance seems to be something of a favor to Rogers, who discovered that Vernon suffered from sciatica - pain, weakness and numbness or tingling in the leg caused by problems with the sciatic nerve - while playing basketball with the singer at a local YMCA and has been training him for the two-and-a-half years since.

Rogers showed Vernon some workout routines to strengthen his lower back, and the singer-songwriter was so pleased with the results that his entire band started working out with Rogers, and has even taken his workouts with them on tour.

Vernon even took to Rogers’ RogCity Fitness website to praise his friend’s work. Find out what he had to say, after the jump! Read More...

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Who Was Your Favorite Celebrity Couple of 2011? (Poll)

Posted 12/27/11 12:01 pm EST by in Newsroom Poll

While news of celebrity breakups tends to dominate the headlines, here in the MTV Newsroom, we’re most thankful for the lucky few who stick it out and show us that even in the hectic world of Hollywood, where temptation lurks behind every palm tree, true love conquers all.

Just look at our Favorite Celebrity Couples of 2011!

Whether they are relative newbies to the scene, like Justin Bieber, whose girlfriend Selena Gomez stood firmly beside him as he weathered a (pretty silly) paternity scandal, or established industry veterans like Jay-Z and Beyonce, who after almost four years of marriage (and nearly a decade as a couple) decided to take the next step and are getting ready for their first baby, we love it when a celebrity couple has each other’s back.

Two other happy couples also took a big step in 2011: Britney Spears and Jason Trawick and Wiz Khalifa and Amber Rose. Wiz and Amber caused a stir earlier this year when they started doing just about everything, including interviews, together and some pictures and Internet buzz kind of-sort of made it seem like they’d tied the knot. As if! Turns out, they’re just that in love and the media spectacle was their way of showing it off. Less showy and more traditional was our girl Britney, who said yes when former agent Jason asked her to marry him! Well … we take that back. We’re not sure we consider filming a naked shower scene with your flame, as B. did with Jason for “Criminal,” the epitome of traditional, but hey, this is Hollywood we’re talking about.

That brings us to our final favorite couple: Kristen Stewart and Robert Pattinson. They usually keep things pretty quiet, but finally started opening up about each other this year. With the film franchise that brought them together coming to a close next year, we wonder how long it will be before we start hearing engagement and baby rumors about these two? (Well, valid engagement and baby rumors, not the silly tabloid ones you see about them every other week.)

Which celebrity couple was your favorite of 2011? Vote in our poll after the jump! Read More...

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That Happened This Year? Rebecca Black's 'Friday' Edition

Posted 12/22/11 7:00 am EST by in Best Of, Year End 2011

Welcome to "That Happened THIS Year," MTV News' look back at the huge entertainment stories that were absolutely everywhere for a hot minute in 2011 but feel like they happened forever ago or faded so quickly from our collective memories that when we were brainstorming the year that was, we literally couldn't believe they happened this year!

Rebecca Black's "Friday" is so far along in its cycle as a song that it was used in Black Friday commercials this year. The song was so ubiquitous by early summer that when we saw Katy Perry in concert at the Nassau Coliseum, she sang the song a cappella and the entire arena joined in. It's the sort of attention usually accorded a years-old song that everybody knows and loves. That's about half right; "Friday" certainly feels years-old and everyone knows it … it's the loving it part that is kind of divisive.

But so what if everyone knows it because it is, arguably, as Yahoo Music critic Lyndsey Parker noted "the worst song ever"? In fact, the song's notoriety was driven by the criticism – it had accumulated 167 million views on YouTube before it was pulled in mid-June … and over 3.1 million "dislikes" (87 percent of its total ratings), helping it surpass Justin Bieber's "Baby" in late-March as the most disliked YouTube video ever.

By year-end, all the hype earned Black a spot on the list of Twitters top trends of the year, but on a more serious note, she was forced to leave school due to harassment from her classmates and is now being home-schooled. Read More...

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That Happened This Year? Royal Wedding Edition

Posted 12/21/11 7:00 am EST by in Best Of, Year End 2011

Welcome to "That Happened THIS Year," MTV News' look back at the huge entertainment stories that were absolutely everywhere for a hot minute in 2011 but feel like they happened forever ago or faded so quickly from our collective memories that when we were brainstorming the year that was, we literally couldn't believe they happened this year!

We remember it like it was yesterday. (Except we don't. Not at all.) It was a beautiful spring day (according to the Internet) in London. There he was, the future King of England, marrying his beautiful long-time love.

Months and months of non-stop media coverage came to a head on April 29 (right?) when Prince William married Catherine Middleton, who no matter how much the palace tries to sell her as Catherine, Her Royal Highness, The Duchess of Cambridge, will always be our girl Waity Katie, sister of sexy frequent-backside-revealer James.

Kate's gorgeous Sarah Burton dress! Pippa Middleton's bum! Prince Harry looking like the scoundrel we know (hope?) he is despite being clad in his finest officer's duds! Swoon! The Royal Wedding had all the makings of a fairytale event for the ages, and it definitely was … probably … over in England where the populace actually cares about Royal matters. Here in America, beyond Kate's dress and the meme-worthy supporting characters (seriously, call us, James Middleton), the Royal Wedding just wasn't a particularly memorable event.

As soon as it was over, it was like it happened forever ago. From the pre-manufactured memorabilia to the ongoing headlines speculating about Kate's weight or the possibility that she's pregnant, it's like Kate and Wills have been married for years. But, lo and behold, they are still newlyweds! Read More...

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Donald Trump Takes Credit For Discovering Lady Gaga

Posted 12/20/11 9:47 am EST by in Lady Gaga

Lady Gaga

Of course he does!

Erstwhile Republican presidential candidate and "Apprentice" boss Donald Trump is a hardcore business mogul for sure, but we wouldn't exactly call him a star-maker. But he certainly sees himself that way, claiming in his new book, "Time to Get Tough: Making America #1 Again," that he is the one who plucked a little-known pop singer from obscurity and positioned her to become the global superstar we now know as Lady Gaga.

"My people told me, 'Nobody knows who she is but there's this woman with good talent named Lady GaGa.'" Trump writes (via Hollyscoop). "And I said, 'Give me a break.' And then they said, 'She's really good.' So I said, 'I don't care, if you like her, put her on.' So we put her on… It was live all over the United States and all over the world and the next day, nobody was talking about Miss Universe, everybody was talking, 'Who was the woman, who was the entertainer? She was unbelievable."

To be fair, Trump was indeed one of the first to give Gaga a major platform to showcase her talents but exactly what impact that had on the singer's career is the issue. He put her on the "Miss Universe" pageant in mid-July 2008 … over three months after the release of her single "Just Dance" and a full six months before the song topped the Billboard singles charts. So the impact of performing on the pageant seems kind of negligible. But Trump doesn't see it that way.

"I don't want to say we made Lady Gaga, but she was incredible and that was her break," Trump says.

It's worth noting here that Trumps self-aggrandizing ways are on full display when he talks about his discovery of Gaga and just how "all over the United States" his pageant was. The 2008 "Miss Universe" pageant fell right in line with the show's long-declining ratings, pulling in 5.16 million eyes here in the U.S. and coming in third in its timeslot … behind repeats of ABC's "Extreme Home Makeover: Home Edition" and CBS' "Cold Case."

But as we'd expect of Mother Monster, she does seem grateful to have been given that early chance to showcase her talents, regardless of whether or not you consider it her "break." Read More...

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That Happened This Year? Charlie Sheen's Meltdown

Posted 12/20/11 7:00 am EST by in Best Of, Year End 2011

Welcome to "That Happened THIS Year," MTV News' look back at the huge entertainment stories that were absolutely everywhere for a hot minute in 2011 but feel like they happened forever ago or faded so quickly from our collective memories that when we were brainstorming the year that was, we literally couldn't believe they happened this year!

Is it just us or has the celebrity scandal-to-forgiveness cycle gone into overdrive? Once upon a time, when a superstar did something sketchy and got busted, he or she usually issued an apology then went into hiding for a bit before returning to the public eye to see if they'd been forgiven. A perfect example of the old-school way of handing things is Mel Gibson, who in July of 2006 was arrested for drunk driving and went on an anti-Semitic tirade then pretty much disappeared from the public eye for over three years, making his first post-scandal film appearance in 2010's "Edge of Darkness." (We won't get into his most recent domestic violence/scary voicemails shenanigan and how that's working out.)

Then there's Charlie Sheen, who in record time went from being at the center of an enormous, completely insane scandal to appearing at the Emmys as a dignified pop cultural war survivor. All of which happened this year! Can you believe it?

In January, Sheen's top-rated comedy "Two and a Half Men" was put on hiatus while he received treatment at his home for substance abuse. The remainder of the season was cancelled, however, the following month after Sheen made some extremely disparaging remarks about series creator Chuck Lorre, and CBS and Warner Bros. officially fired the actor from the series in early March. That was when things really went off the rails. Those interviews! The goddesses! His custody issues with troubled ex-wife Brooke Mueller. Tiger blood! "Winning." The drugs. The warlock nonsense. His disastrous "My Violent Torpedo of Truth/Defeat is Not An Option" tour.

It was just a non-stop run of self-inflicted indignities that boggles the mind. (And at the time I worked at a celebrity gossip website … I'd written about my fair share of terrible, degrading, demoralizing things. None of them holds a candle to the Sheen Saga of 2011 in terms of jaw-dropping, can't-believe-this-is-actually-happening madness.)

But when it was over, it was OVER. Sheen was replaced on "Two and a Half Men" by Ashton Kutcher (is there something about that role?) and the world kept on spinning. Read More...

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Avery Jessup-Donaghy Hits Twitter To Address Concerns About Kidnapper's Death

Posted 12/19/11 4:24 pm EST by in Television, Tweet Beat

Elizabeth Banks

The death of North Korean dictator Kim Jong-il has put the U.S. on alert, but surely no concern is more pressing than what will it mean for Avery Jessup-Donaghy.

Avery is, of course, the wife of Jack Donaghy, Vice President of East Coast Television and Microwave Oven Programming for General Electric Kabletown and was kidnapped by Jong-Il while on assignment in North Korea as part of the "Hot Blondes in Weird Places" initiative. When we last heard from Avery, she'd been married off to Kim Jong-un, Jong-il's son and now the "Great Successor" to the leadership of North Korea.

If you have no idea what we're talking about, it's probably because you don't watch NBC's "30 Rock." (PS. What's wrong with you?!) What we described above is the plotline for Elizabeth Bank's character on the Emmy-winning sitcom, and now Banks, who will play Effie Trinket in the much-anticipated adaptation of "The Hunger Games," has taken to Twitter to address concerns about Avery. Read on to see what she had to say! Read More...

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Did NYU Fire A Professor For Giving James Franco a 'D'?

Posted 12/19/11 2:38 pm EST by in James Franco

James Franco

That's what José Angel Santana is claiming in a lawsuit filed against New York University in Manhattan Supreme Court, according to the New York Post.

Santana claims he was sacked from NYU's Tisch School of the Arts for awarding Franco a "D" in Directing the Actor II after the Oscar-nominated "Rise of the Planet of the Apes" star missed 12 of 14 classes. (A "D" sounds kind of generous in that regard, eh?) "The school has bent over backwards to create a Franco-friendly environment, that’s for sure," the former professor to the Post. "In my opinion, they’ve turned the NYU graduate film degree into swag for James Franco’s purposes, a possession, something you can buy."

Santana says that it is known that having a big-name student like Franco enrolled translates into increased enrollment (i.e. dollar bills, y'all) for the university, which is why other members of the Tisch faculty awarded the actor good grades.

Franco griped about the grade to Showbiz411.com last year, saying, "I did the work. I did well in everything else." Read More...

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Your Favorite Videos Of 2011 From Katy, Taylor, Britney, Beyonce And Chris Brown!

Posted 12/19/11 1:54 pm EST by in Beyonce, Britney Spears, Chris Brown, Katy Perry, Newsroom Poll, Taylor Swift, Video

The time has come!

Last week, we opened voting to find out which 2011 videos from fan-favorite artists Katy Perry, Taylor Swift, Britney Spears, Beyonce and Chris Brown were your favorites of the year and after several thousand votes were cast, we have the results!

So which videos ruled the roost in 2011? Check 'em out below.

Katy Perry, "The One that Got Away"

Katy's most recent clip dominated the competition, taking 54.76 percent of the vote. "Last Friday Night (T.G.I.F.)" held it up in second with 30.73 percent while Katy's spring smash "E.T." nabbed only 14.51 percent of the vote (probably because the visual spectacle is further back in people's memories than her more recent vids).

Read on for the fan-favorite videos from Swift, Brit, Queen Bey and Chris Brown! Read More...

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