When it comes to breakup songs, Taylor Swift is the master. But of course, there were those bold women who came before her, the honest female songwriters who influenced Taylor — Joni Mitchell, Stevie Nicks, Carly Simon. So when the Red singer got a chance to invite Simon onstage in Foxborough, Massachusetts, Swift jumped right on it.

The two sang Simon's breakup anthem "You're So Vain" at the Gillette Stadium as if it had been Taylor's hit all along. "Vain" has the same attitude of many of Swift's songs, stabbing the heartbreaking boyfriend right back without revealing his identity.

"When I heard 'You're So Vain,' I thought, 'That is the best song that has ever been written,' " Swift said in behind-the-scenes footage from the Red Tour. "That is the most direct way anyone has ever addressed a breakup. It's amazing."

Backstage, the singers had a sisterly connection, holding hands and bonding over their mutual love for songwriting.

"It's a song that really that really developed that style of mine," Simon said, beaming. "A lot of it was not knowing that I was developing that style."

" 'Cause a lot of things happen by accident, don't you feel?" Carly continued, turning to Taylor, who was giddy with excitement.

Taylor Swift Collabs With Fall Out Boy's Patrick Stump. Check It Out!

"Yeah," Taylor answered, looking her directly in the eye, "especially with songwriting."

The women belted the song for the sold-out crowd, directing a sea of handclaps and karaoke sing-alongs.

"It was just so wonderful that I just want to do it again," Carly said after the performance. ...

The status of Beyoncé's new album has been the subject of scrutiny for much of 2013, thanks in no small part to her endless string of high-profile performances, TV specials and endorsement deals.

But in recent months, that scrutiny has gone to another level entirely.

Based on interviews given by collaborators Ne-Yo and Diplo — both of whom made it seem as if Beyoncé was still attempting to figure out a direction for the disc — and reports that she'd scrapped 50 songs intended for the album and was beginning from scratch, the project definitely seems to be in flux, and some have begun to wonder if the follow-up to 4 would see the light this year.

All the while, Beyoncé's camp have shot down rumors of a delay, saying that there never has been a release date for the album, tentative or otherwise. And last week, when MTV News emailed her reps asking for a comment about a reported November release, we did not receive a response. But on Sunday, a spokesperson for Bey did give us an update on the progress she's making ... and, take note, BeyHivers, there is progress:

"She continues work on her album," her rep wrote in an email.

Beyoncé will keep on working between dates on her Mrs. Carter World Tour, which wraps a North American run in August before heading back overseas. She'll return for another leg of North American shows at the end of 2013.

This fall, Lil Mama will appear as Lisa "Left Eye" Lopes in VH1's biopic but on Saturday (July 27), she gave fans a preview of sorts when she joined the group's reunited members at the Mixtape Festival.

The rapper/actress hit the stage with Chilli and T-Boz in Hershey, Pennsylvania, and performed their hit "No Scrubs."

Earlier in the week, the group also announced plans to release a compilation album featuring classics and a few new tracks penned by artists that include Lady Gaga and Ne-Yo. T-Boz and Chilli followed that by hitting the stage in Pennsylvania this weekend, delivering hits like "Creep," "Unpretty" and "Ain't 2 Proud 2 Beg," before honoring Left Eye with their performance of "Waterfalls."

"This song was true and dear to her heart and I'm sure it means a lot to you guys," Chilli told the crowd before singing 'Waterfalls.' "If you have a lighter or a cell phone, iPads, computers, whatever you got, light it up. This is dedicated to Lisa, to Left Eye."

To close the show, Lil Mama joined T-Boz and Chilli onstage, rapping Left Eye's verse on "No Scrubs."

The rapper/actress will play the late star in the upcoming TLC biopic, while Keke Palmer and Drew Sidora will play the roles of Chilli, and T-Boz, respectively.

"I am as Big of Left Eye fan as many of you guys. I look at her as a precious iconic force of nature that can never be duplicated or replaced," Lil Mama tweeted after the show this weekend. "Though Her Music, Knowledge, ...

When Lucasfilm and Disney announced that they would team up to bring a new trilogy of "Star Wars" movie to the screen, what got the most hardcore fans excited wasn't the idea of seeing new films along the lines of "Attack of the Clones." The promise of more "Star Wars" movies — especially if they continue the story of Luke, Han, and Leia — came with the hope that things might go back to how they used to be, back when Yoda was a puppet and nobody knew what a midi-chlorian is.

So it's hard not to get excited when Lucasfilm president Kathleen Kennedy speaks at "Star Wars Celebration Europe" (via IGN) and says something like, "The story and characters are all we're talking about right now. We have an amazing team at ILM, who can create fantastic effects, but if we don't have a great story and characters, the effects mean nothing."

Kennedy — who's splitting her time between Lucasfilm and Bad Robot to shape up the script — implied that the new trilogy will hew closer to the original three films.

"I do think making huge popular culture — and I've had the good fortune to be a part of a lot it — is really hard to do and get right," Kennedy continued. "And if you don't spend the time you need on developing characters, and finding stories, complicated stories, the audience gets tired because they think they're seeing the same thing again and again."

Back in February, "Empire Strikes Back" and "Episode VII" script consultant Lawrence Kasdan ...

It's the kind of superstar hookup of pop fan fiction dreams: Katy Perry and Britney Spears sharing a microphone to record a song. All right, so, technically, the dynamic duo weren't in the studio at the same time, but Perry revealed this weekend that you can hear her singing some of the backing vocals on Britney Spears' "Smurfs 2" single 


"Me and Bonnie secretly did some background vocals on that song," Perry told E! News on Sunday at the film's premiere about the song written by Perry's frequent collaborator, Bonnie McKee. "So maybe listen for our voices."

Now that she mentions it, those vocals did sound a bit familiar. But the sessions for "La La" were just a tease for Perry, who did her bit without actually being in the same room with Brit. "I can't wait to meet her," Perry said of Spears, who attended the premiere in, yes, a blue dress, with her sons, and video co-stars
, in tow.

Perry is back in her role of Smurfette in "The Smurfs 2" movie, where she stars alongside Neil Patrick Harris, Christina Ricci and Fred Armisen.

Britney was clearly excited about the movie's debut and the possibility of more work together, tweeting, "So great to see you Smurfette @katyperry! Can't wait for our Vegas date ..." Can we expect Perry to drop in on Britney's Sin City residency?
 Who knows?

The mutual admiration society extended to Perry's Twitter account, with the breathless tweet, "OMG!!!!!! I CAN'T I'M CRYING" under a picture of her ...

Bryan Singer may have returned to the "X-Men" franchise to direct the sequel to 2011's "First Class," entitled "Days of Future Past," but that doesn't mean that he's begun sticking his fingers into other directors' pies. Despite rumors that he shot the Easter egg at the end of the new film "The Wolverine," director James Mangold insisted that he tackled all of that work himself.

"Every scene in the movie, I directed," Mangold told MTV News' Josh Horowitz.

Mangold explained that him shooting that sequence was just another facet of his approach to material that, quite frankly, he didn't want to be too comic-booky. "One of the things I wanted very much, as you can tell, is I tried to dial back some of the kind of quippiness of the other films," he said. "There's not as much cigar-chomping, not as much one-liners after every moment of violence. I felt like you can't have it all — you can't have 'The Outlaw Josey Wales' and have him make a smart remark every three seconds."

While we won't spoil the contents of that Easter egg, Mangold revealed that its focus — on events that may play out in future "X-Men" films — still needed to maintain the tone that he established in "The Wolverine." "When it came time to think about an Easter egg at the back of the film, I think for me I just didn't want to make a gag," he said. "I didn't want to make a joke. I didn't want to somehow take the movie down after ...

First, Lady Gaga revealed the artwork for her brand-new single "Applause" to Women's Wear Daily, and then, in her interview with the mag, she revealed a whole lot more.

Like, for example, the severity of the hip injury that forced her to cancel the Born This Way Ball and put her on the shelf for nearly six months. An initial statement from her camp said she was suffering from "a labral tear of the right hip," but, according to Gaga, that wasn't the whole story.

"My injury was actually a lot worse than just a labral tear," she said. "I had broken my hip. Nobody knew, and I haven't even told the fans yet. But when we got all the MRIs finished before I went to surgery there were giant craters, a hole in my hip the size of a quarter, and the cartilage was just hanging out the other side of my hip.

"I had a tear on the inside of my joint and a huge breakage," she continued. "The surgeon told me that if I had done another show I might have needed a full hip replacement. I would have been out at least a year, maybe longer."

Lady Gaga Reveals Her Fashion Plans For This Year's VMAs!

Gaga told WWD that, while surgery was tough, her recovery was even worse — mostly because she hadn't gone more than two weeks without performing since she was 14 years old. But she used her time away to reconnect with her Haus of Gaga crew (collaborators Inez van Lamsweerde ...

Even without the "X-Men," Wolverine had enough strength to claw his way to the top of the box office.

was the #1 movie in theaters over the weekend with an estimated $55 million haul. That total was far below some of the more optimistic industry projections and even a bit below 20th Century Fox's own conservative $60 million estimate. But while Hugh Jackman's sixth appearance in the star-making role had one of the lowest starts for the "X-Men" franchise, it will likely benefit from positive reviews and word-of-mouth in the coming weeks.

The 2009 prequel, "X-Men Origins: Wolverine," received even worse reviews than Brett Ratner's franchise misstep, "X-Men: The Last Stand." The much more character-driven "The Wolverine," based on a classic early '80s mini-series by comic book legends Chris Claremont and Frank Miller, has had Jackman and fans declaring it delivers the best onscreen version of the character.

Audiences who stuck around for the credits were treated to a brief "Avengers"-style Easter egg which (spoiler alert) teased next year's "X-Men: Days of Future Past," which is currently shooting under "X-Men" and "X2" director Bryan Singer. The next "X-Men" film will unite the casts of the original trilogy with the gang from the well-received prequel, "X-Men: First Class." Jackman joined the rest of the "Days of Future Past" cast at San Diego Comic-Con, where Fox promoted "The Wolverine" as well.

Speaking exclusively with MTV News, director James Mangold revealed plans for an unrated version to reintegrate scenes that were cut to earn a PG-13 rating. "The Wolverine" made another $86.1 ...

Lady Gaga has, literally, turned her face into a canvas for the cover of the first single from her upcoming ARTPOP
 album, 


The arresting image of Gaga's faces smeared with blue, red and yellow streaks of paint and sandwiched in the folds of a white sheet, premiered on the Women's Wear Daily site over the weekend.

Shot by photographic duo Inez van Lamsweerde and Vindooh Matadin, the picture and accompanying interview are the official confirmation that the as-yet-unheard song will be the first bit of new music from the anticipated album. The song will be available on iTunes on August 19, which, Gaga revealed on her LittleMonsters community, will also be the first day fans can pre-order the ARTPOP album and interactive app.

That's six days before Gaga will make her sure-to-be triumphant stage return
 at this year's 2013 MTV Video Music Awards at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn on August 25.

Gaga shot the "Applause" video, directed by Van Lamsweerde and Matadin, in Los Angeles a week ago. The cover image is a still from the shoot that Gaga said shows a vulnerable part of her personality that fans rarely see.

"It's the end of the night after the show," she said of the shot, in which her hair is covered by a black head wrap. "When I look at it I see that there is a longing for the applause. I see that there is a void that is leaking onstage, that the performer is leaking, that the art is sort of becoming ...

Justin Timberlake is taking it to the streets for his new video for 
 the first single from his The 20/20 Experience — 2 of 2
 album, due out on September 30. The clip, filmed on the streets of New York, will world premiere on July 30.

But before that, starting at 7 a.m. ET on Tuesday, JT's fans will get a chance to go on a journey through the making of the video by joining an interactive hashtag campaign on Twitter supported by behind-the-scenes content enabled by Stipple, which will unlock the full video.

According to a Timberlake spokesperson, the look behind the making of the "Night" video will take fans, "on a fun, virtual journey throughout New York City, from the legendary Yankee Stadium to historic locales in Chinatown and unlock secrets of the video by touching images to gain fun facts and expand the experience on the making of the [video]."

Fans who join JT's new fan club, The Tennessee Kids can share their #TakeBackTN moments with each other. The video was directed by Jeff Nicholas, Jonathan Craven and Darren Craig for The Uprising Creative, the same company behind Timberlake's NSFW "Tunnel Vision" video.

Timberlake, who is tied with Macklemore & Ryan Lewis for a leading six nominations
 at the August 25 2013 MTV Video Music Awards, is on the road with Jay Z now as part of their 
 tour.

He'll kick off "The 20/20 Experience World Tour" on October 31 in Montreal before taking the outing ...