While the chorus of support for Justin Bieber has gotten a little quieter in the wake of the leak of a second n-word-filled video, even someone as hardcore as former N.W.A rapper Ice Cube can, kind of, give Justin the benefit of the doubt in this case.

“It’s really on him,” Cube told MTV News. “You gotta always be in tune with what you sayin’ and who you talkin’ about. What might be fun and games to you could really, really hurt and affect somebody else.” Cube, who co-stars in “22 Jump Street” (whose star, Jonah Hill, issued his own series of apologies this week for an ill-considered use of a homophobic slur), has, of course, made liberal use of the n-word in the past.

The obvious difference being that he’s a black man born in gritty South Central, Los Angeles, who was part of a militant rap group that employed the word as a cudgel to beat home a message of rage, empowerment and defiance, not a white Canadian pop singer who, at age 14 and 15, appeared to be using it as a punchline.

“You live and learn,” Cube said with a shrug about Bieber, 20, noting that the singer hangs around with a crew of black people, so he probably doesn’t have “too many issues.”

Gil Kaufman

There were plenty of fireworks onstage at Wednesday night’s 2014 CMT Awards. But, c’mon, you know as well as we do that the real action takes place when nobody is looking: in the VIP areas and backstage.

Here are some of our favorite pictures you didn’t see from last night’s party:

This Is How Luke Bryan And Jason Derulo Roll

And A Shot Of Jason From The Crowd

All The Times The Mustachioed Captain From Dierks Bentley’s ‘Drunk On A Plane’ Photobombed

Cassadee Pope Felt O So Pretty

Brooklyn Decker Took A Family Pic

Presenter James Van Der Beek Gave Us A Bird’s Eye View Of Miranda Lambert’s Win

EDM Violinist Lindsey Stirling Stan’d Out Over Meeting Blake

Speakin’ Of Geekin’, ’2 Broke Girls’ Star Beth Behrs Hugged It Out With Lionel Richie

Beth Is Fine With Being Herself, But She’d Rather Be Carrie And Miranda

Gil Kaufman

A day after a second video leaked in which a young Justin Bieber is seen using racist language, the singer issued yet another apology for the clips from his early years in the spotlight.

“Facing my mistakes from years ago has been one of the hardest things I’ve ever dealt with,” Bieber said in a statement obtained by E! News. “But I feel now that I need to take responsibility for those mistakes and not let them linger.”

The apology is the second one in two days Bieber has issued for the video reportedly shot when he was 14, in which he repeatedly uses the N-word and jokes about joining the Ku Klux Klan. Both Bieber and manager Scooter Braun posted responses to that clip on Wednesday, but the latest scandal to envelop the now-20-year-old singer continues to boil.

“I just hope that the next 14-year-old kid who doesn’t understand the power of these words does not make the same mistakes I made years ago,” Bieber said. “At the end of the day I just need to step up and own what I did.” In his first apology, Bieber quoted the lines from a daily devotional from Sarah Young entitled “Jesus Calling.”

CLICK HERE FOR MORE INFO ON RACIALLY OFFENSIVE WORDS AND HOW TO ELIMINATE THEM FROM YOUR LIFE

“Confess your wrong doing, which I know all about before you say a word. Stay in the Light of My Presence, receiving forgiveness, cleansing, and healing,” read the ...

When Mariah Carey named her 14th studio album Me. I Am Mariah… The Elusive Chanteuse, she probably did mean it literally. But, with the exception of the odd holiday album, Mimi’s latest will do something few of her other releases have done lately: miss a #1 debut and set a new sales low.

Frozen Out By Coldplay
Sure, six of Mariah’s albums have debuted at #1 with sales above the 100,000 (or 200,000, or 300,000) mark, but things were a bit more low-key this time around. In fact, Chanteuse came in at #3 on the Billboard 200 album chart with modest sales of 58,000, according to figures provided by Nielsen SoundScan. That’s the smallest opening for one of her non-holiday albums since SoundScan started tracking data in 1991. The harder pill to swallow, though, is that she was beat out at #1 by Coldplay, whose Ghost Stories plunged 78 percent in week two to nearly 83,000, but still hung on to the top spot.

In fact, she also came in behind country singer Brantley Gilbert’s Just As I Am, which fell 69 percent in week two to 65,000.

Where Mahonies At?
Austin Mahone‘s The Secret EP debuted at #5 on sales of nearly 46,000, which is really all he ever needs. Further down the chart, Cher Lloyd’s Sorry I’m Late was just outside the top 10 at #12 (17,000) and Robyn’s EP with Royksopp, Do It Again, landed at #14 (15,000).

Still ‘Fancy,’ Still #1
Strengthening her bid for the song ...

Can Team Lopez do it again? The Oscar-winning couple behind the songs of “Frozen,” Robert Lopez and Kristen Anderson-Lopez, are working on an original romantic stage comedy called “Up Here” that will be part of the 2015-2016 season at California’s La Jolla Playhouse.

According to Billboard, the show will be directed by Tony nominee Alex Timbers, who directed “Rocky” on Broadway.

The show is describe as a story of a man who falls in love and explores the idea of “moving past ourselves – and those little voices in our head – to find happiness.” The couple have already written the songs, lyrics and story and a few preliminary table readings have been held, though no casting has been announced.

“As you can imagine with the Lopezes, it is witty, it is wicked smart, it is irreverent, and it’s youthful in its energy,” said producer Scott Sanders (“The Pee-Wee Herman Show”). “It will appeal to a broad audience but it certainly will be something that even Millennials will relate to… Some of the characters are written in one of the protagonist’s imagination and it’s going to allow for some creative staging – so, of course, nobody’s better at that than Alex Timbers.”

Sorry, Olaf, sounds like there’s no room for you in this one.

Gil Kaufman

Add NBA player Jason Collins and the Netflix series “Orange is the New Black” to the list of honorees at the upcoming Logo TV “Trailblazers” special. The one-hour show honoring pioneers in the fight for LGBT equality will premiere on June 26 at 9 p.m. ET/PT, the one-year anniversary of the defeat of the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), which allowed states to ignore the out-of-state marriages of same-sex couples.

Brooklyn Nets forward Collins was the first out athlete to play in one of the four major American sports leagues and “Black” has won accolades for portraying the lives and stories of characters rarely seen on U.S. TV screens. Both are being honored by LOGO for their work in overcoming bias and bringing about LGBT equality.

“Black” cast members, including transgender star Laverne Cox, will appear alongside the night’s other honorees, Edie Windsor and lawyer Roberta Kaplan, who helped defeated DOMA and open the door for gay marriage thanks to the landmark United States v. Windsor case. “It is an honor to be included in the company of Edie Windsor and Roberta Kaplan in Logo’s celebration of our progress towards LGBT equality,” said Collins. “We are proof that the actions we make, big or small, can have a positive, global impact on our community.”

Pop duo Tegan and Sara, rocker Laura Jane Grace, openly gay college athlete Matt Kaplon and out ex-NFL player Wade Davis will also appear, alongside a number of other celebrities, including: Jared Leto, Kylie Minogue, Ariana Grande, and Rita ...

When Rihanna changed her Twitter avatar to honor late poet/author Maya Angelou it was a touching tribute to an American icon that sometimes felt a bit weird given Rih’s often hard R-rated posts. But on Tuesday, she may have finally found the ultimate image that will never blush, no matter how many times her nipples can’t be contained.

In a nod to her instantly infamous sheer CFDA Awards outfit, “Family Guy” patriarch Peter Griffin put on his best nude dress and, well, Rih was so impressed she had to make it her own.

Gil Kaufman

Remember the good old days when John Mayer swore off talking about his exes and said he was going to take the high road? Oh well.

JM was back to his old tricks on Monday when TMZ caught up with him to chat about some past loves, including Katy Perry, and, well, Mayer just couldn’t slow down the mouth train.

“I have super strength for gang-ups, I’m fine,” Mayer told the site when asked if he was bothered by the songs his former loves write about him. “That’s what you’re supposed to do, man, you’re supposed to write songs. You’re just not supposed to tell everybody you’re doing it.”

Out on a date acting as a third wheel with some friends, Mayer laughed when the paparazzo broke the news that Perry is reportedly working on a new song about John. “I actually want everybody’s song to go #1,” he said. “I purposely stopped writing hits to give other people a chance to have #1 songs.”

As for that alleged “scientific proof” that tunes with his name in them (ahem, Taylor Swift‘s not #1 hit “Dear John”) always go to #1, well, we’ll have to test that hypothesis later.

Gil Kaufman

Jonah Hill says there’s no excuse for what he said to an annoying paparazzo over the weekend.

“What I said in that moment was disgusting,” the two-time Oscar nominee told Howard Stern on the radio legend’s SiriusXM satellite radio show Tuesday morning (June 3).

Knowing Stern was going to ask about the video that broke on Monday night in which Hill yells “Suck my d—, you f—–!” at a photographer who had reportedly been baiting the “Wolf of Wall Street” actor about his outfit and family, Jonah offered no apologies for losing his cool and uttering the slur.

“This is a heartbreaking situation for me,” said Hill, who Stern described as being visibly angry when the incident was brought up. “Anger’s not the right word at all. I’m upset. Because from the day I was born, and publicly, I’ve been a gay rights activist.”

Saying there was no excuse for what he said in the 40-second clip posted by TMZ, Hill explained the photographer had been following him around all day and saying “hurtful things about my family” and “really hurtful things about me personally.”

“I played into exactly what he wanted and lost my cool,” said Hill. “In that moment, I said a disgusting word that does not at all reflect how I feel about any people.”

Hill said he grew up with gay family members and was leaving to stand up at a close friend’s gay wedding after the Stern interview, but would not use those facts as an explanation for what happened.

“I’m not ...

One Direction‘s Liam Payne has already sort of broken his silence about the weed-smoking video that has surfaced of Zayne Malik and Louis Tomlinson toking up in a car in Peru. Now, the boys’ mentor, Simon Cowell, has weighed in on the (alleged) joint seen round-the-world and he says it’s time to cut the guys some slack.

In an interview with Digital Spy Cowell said 1D are super dedicated to their jobs and that they love their fans as much as ever.

“What I can say is that they’re the hardest-working boys I’ve ever worked with,” said Cowell. “They still haven’t changed. They’re really respectful of their fans [and] they’re a great British export… they’ve been a joy to work with. I’ve worked with a lot of artists in the past who do lose the plot, who do lose respect for their fans, they’ve never done that.”

Cowell wouldn’t respond directly when asked what advice, if any, he’s given 1D, saying it’s a “private matter,” but that he’s “on the phone all the time” with his artists. Payne was more specific in his apology, tweeting last week that, “We all have a lot of growing up to do in an extreme circumstance. I’m not making excuse but it’s face we are gunna fall short somewhere.”

Gil Kaufman