Rihanna

Well, she's just lining up records left and right, isn't she?

Pop princess Rihanna has now passed Lady Gaga in total number of YouTube views, making her the most-viewed female recording artist on the go-to video viewing network. Over the weekend, RiRi boasted 2,068,076,591 (yeah, that's billion with a capital "B") official views to Gaga's 2,044,728,691. Digital Journal reports Rihanna has been attracting over 3,000,000 views daily for most of the late fall and early winter on the strength of her singles from Talk That Talk, including an impressive 115.3 million views for her chart-topping smash "We Found Love."

Gaga, by comparison, has seen her YouTube dominance dwindle. Recent singles "You and I" (49.4 million) and "Marry the Night" (31.3 million) are far from her 2010-11 peak, when one-time record holder "Bad Romance" commanded a staggering 443 million views and songs like "Telephone" (132.1 million), "Alejandro" (162.5 million) and "Born This Way" (88.3 million) regularly tallied massive numbers.

Neither starlet, however, has been able to catch up to the young king of YouTube, Justin Bieber, who has 2,275,845,406 views.

Rihanna can add this latest achievement to her growing list of honors. Read More...

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Here in the MTV Newsroom, we rounded out our year with a look back at our favorite celebrity couples, best red carpet moments and biggest splits and asked you to let us know which stars topped your lists. Well, the results are in!

Nearly 30 thousand votes were cast in the Favorite Celebrity Couple of 2011 poll and it was a tight race between two pop stars that left everyone else in the dust. Britney Spears and Justin Bieber and their respective significant others, Jason Trawick and Selena Gomez, accounted for nearly 92 percent of the vote, leaving a scant 6.52 percent for RPatz and KStew, 1.43 for Jay and Beyonce and a measly 0.7 percent for Wiz Kalifa and Amber Rose.

So who took it? Well, Biebs and Selena scored 41.76 percent of the vote leaving recent birthday girl Britney Spears and new fiance Jason Trawick with a winning 50.22 percent.

As for Biggest Celebrity Breakup and Biggest Red Carpet Moment … well, read on for all the facts and figures. Read More...

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By Zachary Swickey

It’s been no secret that the music industry has been on a sharp decline over the last decade - or at least album sales have. With the emergence of Napster in the ‘90s and the eventual widespread acceptance of purchasing music online, the industry has had a tough time keeping up with these new trends and combating piracy, but things are looking up.

While there’s still a week of reporting left for Soundscan – the company that counts the amount of albums sold – 2011 appears to be the first year boasting an increase in overall album sales since 2004. Granted, the increase is only 1 percent, but that’s coming off 2010, when sales were down 13 percent and the years prior when sales dropped an average of 8 percent regularly year-over-year.

Who does the industry owe a big ups to for this achievement? Well, it’s a no-brainer that Adele’s 21, the best-selling album since Usher’s 2004 effort Confessions, with 5.68 million units moved so far, is the biggest reason - an achievement made all the more impressive considering she had to axe her stateside tour (twice!) due to vocal problems.

Of course, classic crooner Michael Buble has seen his Christmas album move a half milli a week this entire month. Christmas is Buble’s third number one album, and with 2.43 million sold, it’s the second best selling of the year behind Adele – overtaking Lady Gaga’s Born This Way within the last week.

Gaga’s numbers are nothing to scoff at with Born This Way going solidly double platinum this year. Amazon’s 99-cent firesale of her new album during its first week of release helped Gaga to a million-unit debut, but the controversy stemming from the sale also caused Billboard and Soundscan to readjust the rules for charting albums – full-length releases priced below $3.49 no longer count. Read More...

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For our favorite celebrities, the red carpet is the place to make a big statement. From outrageous fashion to borderline crazy antics, it all happens on the way into an event.

Check out MTV News' Most-Memorable Red Carpet Moments!

But who really brought their A-game to the carpet in 2011? Well, Lady Gaga for one. People will be talking for years to come about her arrival at this year’s Grammy Awards. No, she didn’t have on another meat dress. She arrived in an egg, silly! It had something to do with being in gestational creative state or something. Some thought it was pretty awesome, others considered it just plain weird. Love it or hate it, if you were watching, you won’t soon forget it!

Also causing a stir at the Grammy was our girl Snooki, who co-hosted MTV’s coverage with Sway Calloway. But the real buzz came from MTV’s own red carpets. At the Movie Awards, “Twilight” starlet Nikki Reed announced her engagement to “American Idol” finalist Paul McDonald (the pair wed in October). And at the VMAs, Justin Bieber introduced us to his snake, Johnson. His pet snake, a baby boa constrictor, just to be clear.

Then there was Beyonce. Oh, Queen Bey! Without warning the R&B superstar, who was one of MTV News' Top Newsmakers of 2011, showed up on the VMA red carpet in a striking orange Lanvin dress, and though she didn’t talk to the press, she caressed her belly in a way that pretty much said it all!

Which red carpet moment was tops in 2011? Let us know by voting in our poll after the jump! Read More...

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By Sterling Wong

"She works hard for the money," Donna Summer once sang, and just as it was the case in 1983, pop stars these days have to work their butts off to earn those album purchases, downloads and concert ticket sales in this age of YouTube, X-Box and Angry Birds.

But while some singers identify with the Protestant work ethic espoused by Donna, there are others who, as Bruno Mars puts it, “don’t feel like doing anything [and] just wanna lay in my bed.” And it’s not always only those who are hardworking who find success, as the popularity of Bruno proves. Sometimes you can have your cake and eat it.

So, who’s working hard and who’s not? In the spirit of Christmas, we decided to put together a pop star naughty and nice list for Santa. Read More...

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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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Katy Perry

By Zachary Swickey

We already knew that U2 was going to set a new record for highest grossing tour of all time, and of course they have now officially done so – pulling in $293 million more bones this year alone (which means they could pretty much recreate Scrooge McDuck’s swimming pool of money in the real world) from 44 shows as Billboard reports in their list of the top-grossing tours of 2011.

While vets like U2, Bon Jovi, Roger Waters and Take That (Take Who?) take the four top spots, the younger generation of artists aren’t far behind in the money race with birthday girl Taylor Swift rounding out the top five (blowing away several big name acts like the Eagles and Journey who have apparently not stopped believin’). The country charmer grossed a staggering $97 million on her 89-date tour behind Speak Now … 87 of which were impressively sold-out!

Plenty of other MTV favorites managed to make the list. Read on to find out who! Read More...

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Lady Gaga

Singer, songwriter, director, prime-time Thanksgiving show host, Polaroid designer, friend of Obama. Lady Gaga has so many hyphens in her name at this point that her business card is starting to look like a word cloud.

But that hasn't stopped her from signing up to become an ordained minister in order to perform a wedding ceremony for her close pal and yoga teacher, Tricia Donegan. In light of the legalization of gay marriage in New York state in June, Gaga has filled out the paperwork to do the deed.

According to numerous sources, she reportedly told Perez Hilton, "I'm actually getting ready now to be ordained to marry one of my best friends, Tricia, who is also my yoga instructor."

It would be the first step to what Gaga earlier suggested could be a second (or third or fiftieth, considering her other recent new gig as a nude model for Tony Bennett) side gig as a traveling wedding officiant, following earlier comments that she would like to start performing gay weddings at her concerts in the future. Read More...

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By Carly Kilroy

Don’t know what to get your favorite Little Monster this holiday season? Well, you may want to check out the items Lady Gaga, Tony Bennett and Vanity Fair contributing photographer Annie Leibovitz are auctioning off on Lady Is a Tramp" for Bennett’s newest album, Gaga posed nude for both Bennet and Leibovitz during a Vanity Fair photo shoot. Leibovitz shot photos for the January 2012 cover while Bennett drew a charcoal portrait of the "Marry the Night" singer, which will be one of the many items on the auction block. All proceeds will be donated to Bennet's non-profit organization Exploring the Arts (ETA), as well as the Born This Way Foundation, a non-profit Gaga co-created with MacArthur Foundation and Harvard University to empower youth through self?confidence, well?being, anti?bullying measures, mentoring and career development.

The auction started this morning at 8AM EST and continues through Monday, December 19. Check out the items being auctioned off after the jump and visit ebay Celebrity to bid on the items. Read More...

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Lady Gaga

Lady Gaga was one of the many A-listers (if not the Mother Monster of A-listers) at the Trevor Project Live event over the weekend in Los Angeles.

At the event, she accepted her "Hero" award, telling the room, "I appreciate this award so much. But truthfully, I am not the hero. The hero is Jamey." Gaga accepted the award from the family of Jamey Rodemeyer, a Gaga fan who committed suicide 11 weeks ago. “I want my fans and people all over the world to know that there’s always somebody that’s listening," she added. "But I want them to know they’re listening before it gets too late."

During her speech on Sunday, Gaga touched on her wishes to someday make bullying a hate crime. The Born This Way foundation founder added, "I learned very long ago that my time here on this earth would not just be for pop singing because I was very blessed to have beautiful fans, like I have in Jamey, like I will always have in Jamey. Thank you so much this award tonight. This means more to me than any Grammy I could ever win."

Read More...

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