It's pretty much a VMA tradition at this point for stars to debut new looks on the red carpet, and Sunday night it was Shailene Woodley's turn. The young actress was there to help premiere a first look at "

The cropped 'do debuted on Woodley's Instagram last week, but the VMAs marked the look's first big public outing, and Woodley told MTV News that she couldn't be happier with it. "It's awesome. The actual cut of it is very Midwestern, 17-year-old girl, which is the character I'm portraying," she said. "It's fun to embody this sort of energy for a while."

Lady Gaga lives to shock. She did it again Sunday night at the 2013 MTV Video Music Awards with a run through that had her changing costumes six times during her performance.

But she also made jaws drop on the red carpet before the show, during an interview with MTV News' Sway when she revealed that she's hooked up with one of his Bay Area brethren on a song for ARTPOP. When Swayasked if Gaga was working with any rappers on the album she said she'd actually hooked up with Oakland icon Too $hort.

"I'll give you one ... Too $hort," Gaga told a surprised-looking Sway when he asked if there would be any hip-hop guests on her album.

That's all she revealed, though, so we hopped on the phone with Shortdog on Sunday night to find out how this unexpected hook-up happened.

"I was doing some songs last year with one her producers, DJ White Shadow," $hort said about tunes he's recorded with Shadow for a house music project he's been working on. "He's been pretty busy, doing his thing around the world and he got back at me a little while ago and said, ''There's a song that Lady Gaga's doing that possibly they would want to get you on ... so I said, s--- I'm down with it!'"

Soon after, the session was booked in Los Angeles and $hort got in the booth and laid his verse down, just like that. "Then he called back and was like, 'She's going to debut the song at one of her ...

Fans hopped aboard the train Sunday night, as stars Shailene Woodley and Theo James debuted the first official look at the action thriller during the VMA Pre-Show.

The film, based on the Veronica Roth novel, is set in a near future Chicago in which society has been divided into five factions, each upholding a different virtue: Abnegation (selflessness), Erudite (intelligence), Dauntless (bravery), Amity (peacefulness) and Candor (honesty). Citizens are tested as teens to determine which faction they should align with, but when heroine Beatrice "Tris" Prior (Shailene Woodley) is told she doesn't fit into any of the five, she leaves home to pledge the Dauntless.

With a jam-packed sneak peek full of can't-miss moments, we break down the five key scenes from the "Divergent" clip.

Being Different
When Abnegation-born Beatrice undergoes her aptitude testing (a requirement for all 16-year-olds), she's delivered unsettling results by administrator Tori (Maggie Q): "You're different. You don't fit into a category. They can't control you. They call it Divergent. You can't let them find out about you."

"And what if they already know?" Beatrice asks.

"Then you're already dead," Tori warns.

Those words haunt Beatrice, and instead of staying with her friends and family in the faction she knows, she decides to pledge the Dauntless.

Taking A Flying Leap
Of course, being an initiate in the most fearless of factions is no mean feat. One of Beatrice's first tasks is to jump from the roof of a seven-story building into Dauntless headquarters — through an ominous black hole. Here we see her, still clad in her Abnegation ...

When Kanye West announced that he'd be performing "Black Skinhead" at the 2013 MTV Video Music Awards, fans everywhere probably anticipated a flashy, seizure-inducing reflection of the track's video. Never one to do what's expected of him, Yeezy decided to ditch "Black Skinhead" altogether, and when the chill-inducing sound of "Blood on the Leaves" breached the stage Sunday night (August 25), it called for a slightly darker show.

The track samples Nina Simone's cover of Billie Holiday's "Strange Fruit," a disturbing tale of Southern slavery and the lynching of African-Americans. So when it came time to give his first live performances of the Yeezus track, he ditched the fiery glitz of his last VMA performance — his silhouette danced in front of a large image of a tree. And while viewers may have thought it was just a tree, it's actually a work of art that has much deeper roots.

It's "Lynching Tree," a photographic still by British artist and filmmaker Steve McQueen that embodies dark historical themes of "Blood on the Leaves." The tree — located somewhere near New Orleans — once served as a gallows for slaves, and buried near underneath it are lynched victims, according to the Schaulager museum in Basel, Switzerland, where the piece hangs.

It's related to McQueen's fall film, "Twelve Years a Slave," which tells the story of a free African-American man kidnapped in 1841 and eventually sold into slavery at a cotton plantation in Louisiana.

It's a haunting image for an at-times haunting track — and it all made for a VMA moment ...

Well, that was intense.

We're three-eighths of the way through the final episodes of "Breaking Bad," and it's pretty safe to assume that a good portion of the audience suffered an embolism from the gut-wrenching hour that was "Confessions."

If Vince Gilligan and company are making one thing clear with these final episodes, it's that every minute is going to count in getting us to the finale and learning the fates of Walter, Jesse, and just about everyone else. "Confessions," in particular, gave us a few clues about where we're headed.

The End of Hank?
You thought Walter was going to confess on camera, didn't you? In what has to be considered one of the best "Breaking Bad" twists ever, Walter used his would-be taped confession — another reference to the pilot, by the way — as a platform through which to blackmail his brother-in-law to not proceed with the investigation. The revelation that Marie accepted cash from Walt and Skylar to fund Hank's rehab was "the nail in the coffin" for Hank Schrader, and the only person who could possibly save his crusader to bring Heisenberg to justice just flew off the rails.

Jesse Versus Walter
That's right. Jesse Pinkman. Though he wouldn't cooperate with Hank in the interrogation room, something tells us that he might be a little more willing to testify, but that doesn't appear to be the route Jesse is taking right now. By the end of the episode, it was pretty clear that he has decided on the "Let's burn down the White family house" solution.

The mystery of Brock's poisoning was ...

Wow, running around the 2013 MTV Video Music Awards red carpet was an adrenaline-packed affair. The frisson in the late-summer Brooklyn air was unmistakable as fans lined the block to scream adoringly at their favorite award-show attendees and performers. The fashion was diverse and as on-point as ever with trends running from zany to glamorous.

Our favorite looks of the night tended to rove across all silhouettes and trends but one of the most memorable of the evening had to be Rita Ora's robin's egg blue Alexandre Vauthier. The bodice was classic Rita — a plunging V, strong shoulder and encrusted with gems but the train stole the show. It was stunning, featured thousands of marabou feathers and was so long and luxurious that it had to be carried by her stylist. A pristine, angular, blonde "lob" (long bob) complemented the ensemble.

Katy Perry's Ungaro dress similarly mixed more than one motif and texture. It featured a leopard print, skin-tight, long-sleeved, knee-length base textile but also featured enormous golden butterflies jutting out from various points on her shoulders. A clean, pulled back, high ponytail completed the look with a Céline sandal and Anita Ko jewelry.

If you want to talk about intricate embellishment, you'd be remiss not to mention Iggy Azalea's golden Pucci dress. While she changed from the iridescent gown to the black, feathered frock for the main show, we loved seeing the Pucci in person. As you well know, the alabaster-skinned, platinum-haired Australian native has a ridiculously bodacious body, and it was as if ...

The MTV Video Music Awards might be one of the biggest nights in music, but there's only so much room in Brooklyn's 18,000-capacity Barclays Center, where the show took place. Inevitably, most of us were left watching — and tweeting — from our couches. And all the better, we say, if we get to retweet and favorite to our hearts' content.

We couldn't refresh our timelines fast enough, especially when the boys of 'NSYNC rose out of the stage to join Justin Timberlake for a surprise reunion while he performed before accepting the 2013 Michael Jackson Video Vanguard Award.

It seems 140 characters weren't quite enough to express the sentiment (and, in some cases, snark) that Twitter users felt while watching the boy band reunite in Brooklyn.

Kelly Osbourne displayed surprising enthusiasm for the reunion, despite having been in peak sullen, eyeliner-wearing teen form when the group was in their heyday, tweeting, "Im jumping up and down in my bed room like Im in Junior High again!"

For Paramore singer Hayley Williams, the performance was evidently one of the best parts of her life. "The only part that matters (at the VMAS and all of life) just happened. @NSYNC, come back anytime," she tweeted.

Snooki didn't even need 140 characters to express her sentiments: "OMG DYING!! Now THAT'S A BOY BAND BITCHES!!! NSYNC" Her "Snooki and JWoww" co-star, Jenni Farley, seemed to agree, tweeting, "I literally just died seeing Nsync....I'm so happy im in tears."

On Sunday, Brooklyn's Barclays Center hosted a party the likes of which the brand-new arena has never seen before: the 2013 MTV Video Music Awards. And it rocked. With performances by Lady Gaga, Macklemore & Ryan Lewis, and 'NSYNC(!), not to mention a slew of KAWS-designed Moonmen handed out to our favorite artists, the night was one for the history books.

But the winner's column only tells half the story. From Jared Leto's hair to a fondling foam finger, here are the night's highlights and lowlights.

Winner: Wardrobe Changes
Lady Gaga opened the show with a performance of "Applause," and we have to give a hand to her costume designer for engineering a dizzying number of wardrobe changes. Mother Monster began the set ensconced in a white robe with a matching box on her head. She then transitioned into a blue sparkly suit and blonde bob. Next came the bright yellow wig and ARTPOP-inspired make-up, followed by a finale look the Little Mermaid would have been proud of: a long, flowing wig, sea shell bra and matching G-string. Did we forget to mention Gaga did it all while dancing her ass off? "Applause," indeed.

Loser: Robin Thicke's Mantel
Though Thicke's "Blurred Lines" is arguably the most ubiquitous song of 2013 — not to mention he was up for four VMAs — the singer left without a single Moonman for his mantel. I guess it just wasn't the year for MTV to "Give It 2 U," Robin.

Winner or Loser: Foam Fingers
Speaking of Thicke, the crooner's crotch got really friendly with a foam finger ...

When you're the new kid at the VMAs, typically you do your best and hope not to get overshadowed by all the superstars. But even though Sunday night was ex-Disney star Miley Cyrus' performance debut on the show, the twerk-happy singer grabbed the spotlight like a seasoned veteran.

In addition to backing it up
 into Robin Thicke during a medley of their songs, Miley twisted necks with her barely-there vinyl outfit and a roaming foam finger
 that would not cooperate.

Before the tongue really got working during Cyrus hit the red carpet in a bedazzled half-shirt outfit with baby hair buns and boldly declared that she might top the infamous Britney Spears-Madonna-Christina Aguilera triple-kiss with Sunday night's giant-bear-assisted extravaganza. "We've got better in store for you guys, it's going be even crazier than the kiss," she predicted
.

Making the most of her time in the VMA spotlight, Cyrus also revealed the cover of her upcoming album, Bangerz
 and dropped a provocative new ballad,

Miley got some love from one of her new hip-hop peers as well, with rapper Trinidad Jame$ tweeting, "Miley is turnt! My [n---a.]"

And Twitter user Luca posted a classic picture of Will Smith and his family reacting to Cyrus' performance with what can only be described as a combination of surprise and, well, even more surprise.

Even if you weren't at the Barclays Center Sunday night for the MTV Video Music Awards, the raucous audience reaction made even those in their pajamas feel like they were cheering on 'NSYNC or gasping at Miley Cyrus' tongue attack on Robin Thicke. But nothing's the same as actually being there next to such A-listers as Justin Timberlake, Lady Gaga and Katy Perry.

Miley thought her foam finger from her Robin Thicke duet would make for a great photo with producer Mike Will Made It. The "We Can't Stop" singer, wearing her tiny hair buns, blows a golden whistle while Mike Will shows Miley love with his custom T.

Pre-show DJs NERVO hung out on the red carpet all night, so when we wanted some pics from behind the show, we went to them. Liv and Mim got a bunch of shots in an Instagram video of stars like Ellie Goulding, Calvin Harris and Katy Perry making their way inside.

Justin Timberlake has a big night — he accepted his Michael Jackson Video Vanguard Award and brought back the gang with an 'NSYNC reunion. And, he had a marathon performance, running through all his hits. Here's some snaps he Instagrammed — his outfit essentials and a blurry shot of him about to hit the stage.

Robin Thicke sent out a pre-performance pic as well. Before hitting the stage with Miley Cyrus, 2 Chainz and Kendrick Lamar, the "Blurred Lines" master posed for this photo, showing off his "Beetlejuice"-inspired stripes.

Besides Flying Lotus' drunken live-tweeting ...