Chris Brown may have been behind bars for a few months until his release earlier in June, but he was still able to hold down the Spring and start of Summer with “Loyal.” And with his performance at the 2014 BET Awards on Sunday night (June 29), Breezy proved that he didn’t lose a step while he was away.

As the beat to the Nic Nac-produced hit dropped, Lil Wayne opened the set — his second performance of the night — kicking his catchy first verse.

Then CB emerged, flanked by backup dancers, as he delivered his vocals and moved across the stage as fluidly as ever. Following Tyga’s emergence for his verse, Chris was left on stage alone — and again proved that’s right where he belongs. With Travis Barker on the drums, the singer, whose upcoming album, X, is due later this year, did what he does best; dance!

Adam Fleischer

I'm serious about these snacks. Catch me @adamfleischer

With smoke consuming the stage at the 2014 BET Awards on Sunday night (June 29), Lil Wayne emerged to prove he was the flame.

Clad in dark shades, a bucket hat, and an opened red flannel shirt, Weezy was the annual event’s second performer of the night.

To kick off his set, Tunechi treated the Los Angeles audience and at-home viewers to his first live performance of “Krazy,” his latest Tha Carter V track, which he just released earlier this week.

After giving a taste of the new track — he didn’t perform it in its entirety — Wayne jumped into “Believe Me,” another track off of his highly-anticipated new album. Drake, who’s featured on the song, wasn’t there to perform, but President Carter’s bursting energy made up for it.

“I love you Reginae,” he shouted as his performance ended, in a nod to his daughter. “C5!”

Believe me, I’m ready for Tha Carter V.

Adam Fleischer

I'm serious about these snacks. Catch me @adamfleischer

Listen, we’re generally of the belief that there might be something seriously wrong with Shia LaBeouf and his recent bout of erratic behavior. For that reason, we’re adverse to poking fun at him. Regardless of his public life, something very private is going on with him. Maybe that’s why Liza Minnelli’s rep sent him a DVD copy of “Cabaret”.

According to Minnelli’s rep, Scott Gorenstein, he “just had to” send LaBeouf a copy of the 1972 movie take on the musical—Liza both starred in the film and won the Oscar for Best Actress for her work in it. Gorenstein also said he “figured he may want to find out how it ends.” Of course, this is a play off Shia’s recent uncouth behavior at a Broadway performance of “Cabaret” that led to his arrest.

We’re going to assume it was nothing more than a gesture of kindness amidst a sea of shenanigans currently plaguing the actor. After all, Minnelli knows all-too-well what its like to be on the receiving end of negative press in times of trouble.

At the risk of piling on, another video has surfaced that has us even more worried. Recently, his attention-grabbing moments seem to stem from places of desperate, emotional overreaction — not the work of someone trying to make a scene just because. In this latest bizarre video, LaBeouf is shown trying to pick a fight with a guy outside a strip club.

The footage was obtained by TMZ (because who ...

Apparently Zendaya will no longer portray Aaliyah in the Lifetime movie about the singer. That was fast!

According to a source that spoke to E! News, the shake-up has nothing to do with the backlash surrounding her casting — to which Aaliyah’s family responded — and everything to do with “do[ing] it right.”

E! News also went on to explain that there were some pretty major production issues standing in the way of that, like obtaining the rights to Aaliyah’s music. Which… yeah, seems like a pretty big deal if you ask us!

“Aaliyah has always been an inspiration to Zendaya. She was honored to portray her and pay tribute to her,” the source said, before adding that “If she is going to do it, she wants to do it right.”

Considering the fact that the film was supposed to begin production this summer with a fall premiere, a lack of rights on the musical front — in addition to losing its star — could mean several things for the tentatively titled Aaliyah: Princess of R&B.

First, it seems inevitable that there will be a delay of some sort, either in filming or its release date.

Secondly, they could move forward without the songs, which just seems silly, but isn’t unprecedented (see: those 353457348957 Jeff Buckley biopics). Or the whole project could be scrapped completely — though that seems largely unlikely given the press surrounding the film.

Who’s your next choice for the role? ...

File this one under “things that we love that have happened”: the cast of Netflix’s “Orange is the New Black” got in on the Pride celebrations with their own float. Naturally, it was the best.

Why yes, that is Taystee, Poussey, Daya, Morello, and Bennett floating their way down the New York City streets. Pretty fantastic, isn’t it?

Thankfully there’s more where that came from:

Poussey might be winning Pride, just saying. These summery outfits are much better than those orange jumpsuits for preening on a float.

And over on Instagram, the cuteness continued:

Given that this year’s Grand Marshal of the NYC Pride parade was series star Laverne Cox, it’s no surprise some of the other gals showed up to support.

But it wasn’t just in New York that pride revelers were treated to a bit of OITNB love. Big Boo was over in San Francisco, ensuring that the Litchfield Ladies were represented all across the country:

So just to summarize: the ladies of OITNB are the best (as is Bennett! We see you) and their pride at Pride is clearly the greatest, the end.

Alicia Lutes

Too much exuberance for one person. Follow her on Twitter @alicialutes.

HBO’s new show “The Leftovers” may be based on Tom Perrotta’s critically acclaimed book, and even have Perrotta on board as a producer and co-writer; but that doesn’t mean there haven’t been changes.

As MTV News found out when we caught up with Perrotta and series co-creator Damon Lindelof on the show’s red carpet in New York, moving from novel to television necessitated a few changes, most notably the tone.

“TV is a dramatic medium,” Perrotta told us when asked about the changes from page to screen. “The book had a kind of meditative, contemplative tone that really worked in the kind of solitude of a reader interacting with words on a page, but a show demands more adrenaline, and we’ve delivered on that.”

The source of most of that adrenaline? Kevin Garvey (Justin Theroux), who is another of the big changes from the book. In the novel, Kevin is the mayor of Mapleton, a man who’s family has survived the non-rapture that made millions of people disappear worldwide all at once, but who’s family was wrecked nonetheless.

Even with a nuclear family unit that has more crumbled than drifted, Garvey is pretty much completely even in the book, possibly even numb. He reflects the satirical nature of Perrotta’s prose perfectly, embodying a man who, well, embodies a world that’s kept going even after suffering gigantic loss.

In the show, however, Theroux is a coil of rage as police chief Kevin Garvey, the diametric opposite of his character in the book. So why the ...

Remember back in 2010 when folk singer Lissie put her terrific spin on Kid Cudi‘s “Pursuit of Happiness” and it was wonderful, cross-genre fun for all? You know, the one that was so epic that ScHoolboy Q sampled it for his own song “Hands On The Wheel”?

Well, the cover got so big that Cudi got wind of itsomehow— and he hopped up on stage during the singer’s show in Paris last night to show his approval.

The newly blondified Cudi initially seemed to prefer basking in Lissie’s badass glow rather than join in on tackling singing duties, but after being overtaken by the performance of this modern-day “Janis Joplin” (as he calls her), the artist alternatively known as Scott Mescudi decided to grab the mic and vibe out.

It’s all just very charming and cool and musical and really, what’s better on a Sunday afternoon, eh?

For those of you out there who’ve yet to hear Lissie’s original take on the tune from 2010 (and what’s wrong with you that you haven’t?), we’ve also included that below because, you know what? We’re not afraid to be servicey here, folks. The more you know the more you enjoy.

Alicia Lutes

Too much exuberance for one person. Follow her on Twitter @alicialutes.

There are plenty of reasons to love Sir Elton John. He has serious eyewear game, he’s written some of the most iconic pop songs of the past fifty years, and he’s a committed champion for human rights everywhere.

And his remarks about Jesus Christ’s hypothetical stance on gay marriage are totally spot-on.

Speaking in an interview with Sky News, John stated, “If Jesus Christ was alive today, I cannot see him, as the Christian person that he was and the great person that he was, saying this could not happen. He was all about love and compassion and forgiveness and trying to bring people together and that’s what the church should be about.”

Though John stated he believes there are “signs of hope” everywhere in the changing tide of long-held religious beliefs, there are still miles to go.

“These are old and stupid things,” he said. “Globally, we seem to have gone backwards over the last 18 months, in certain areas.”

But it’s not just in England — where the Church of England’s refusal to allow gay clergy to marry, in addition to the requirement that Catholic priests remain celibate, are big issues for John — the singer also has his eye on influencing the fraught sexual politics in places like Russia.

“I’m going to Russia in November, and I will try and meet Putin and I will try to talk to him. I don’t know what good it will do. But unless you build a bridge…It’s no good ...

Last year, guitar music god Kurt Vile released the excellent record Wakin’ On A Pretty Daze accompanied by a beautiful mural in his hometown of Philadelphia. The mural served as the album’s artwork, but since people are generally terrible, a man began painting over the commissioned piece this weekend claiming it “attracted graffiti.”

Philadelphia resident Najeeb Sheikh caught the man defacing the mural and angrily posted about it on his Instagram. “So this is the ignorant piece of sh-t that took it upon himself to buff the @steveespopowers [sic] Kurt Ville [sic] mural. When I asked if he knew it was a commissioned piece by a world renown artist he said he did and he didn’t give a sh-t. He claimed it attracted graffiti to the neighborhood!”

The Metro Philadelphia paper picked up the story, given that the mural was painted by world-renown artist Steve Powers. Jane Golden, the executive director of the city’s Mural Arts Program called the loss tragic. “I think the big point here is that it’s really sad to lose a work of art,” she said.

Najeeb wasn’t the only one who was horrified by the defacing—Kurt Vile himself took to Facebook to express his sadness and disappointment. “Bummer of a day yesterday,” Kurt wrote. “The mural that was painted for the cover of Wakin’ was defaced. We’re all working on plans to have it redone and updated.”

Here’s the original mural and cover art for Vile’s album:

Matador ...

It’s probably safe to assume that no one would ever categorize “Transformers: Age of Extinction” as a love story — though one man in China probably hopes his own romantic comedy will begin due to the Michael Bay film.

At least that’s the reasoning behind why he bought hundreds of tickets to IMAX screenings of the film — to prove to a woman who once rebuffed his romantic advances seven years ago (yup — SEVEN!) that he’s a regular ol’ Moneybags now. Really.

According to The South China Morning Post, a man named Wang (it’s his last name, you children) bought hundreds of tickets to a bevy of Beijing IMAX screenings of the film in order to prove his financial security to a woman. As the story is told from his point of view, she upped and moved to Beijing immediately after Wang was unable to afford to take her out on a movie date. So now that Mr. Wang is rolling in the proverbial dough, he’s decided to spend a quarter of a million yuan (Read: $40,000) to buy out all the seats in four of the six IMAX theaters in the capitol city. To prove to a woman that she made some big, huge mistake.

Taking to his Weibo blog (Weibo is essentially China’s answer to Facebook and Twitter), Wang touted his so-called romantic gesture to say, “I only want to say that you might have been wrong when you made that decision.” Because nothing says ...