Rebecca Black's 'Friday' Beats Justin Bieber, Lady Gaga On YouTube

'Friday' has had 100 million views to date, with Black currently working on her second single, 'LOL.'
By Gil Kaufman


Rebecca Black in her video for "Friday"
Photo: Ark Music Factory

There was a minute there when Rebecca Black's "Friday" video was, almost literally, inescapable. Whether the success of the viral hit was being covered on such unlikely outlets as CNN or NPR, getting parodied on late-night television, or just bouncing around from Twitter accounts to e-mail in-boxes and music blogs, the tune by the previously unknown 13-year-old had the kind of white-hot media buzz usually reserved for a Lady Gaga or Justin Bieber.

Well, guess what? The little $2,000 pay-to-play ditty-that-could can now claim to have surpassed such major label juggernauts as Bieber and Gaga. According to a Reuters report, the no-budget clip for Black's song has been viewed more than 100 million times on YouTube since it was released on February 10, surpassing the totals for Gaga's "Born This Way" and Bieber's "Pray" videos, based on numbers provided by Visible Measures, a company that tracks the performance of Web videos.

Scratch that. If you count spoofs, other versions and home-brewed takes on the song, it's actually been seen more than 200 million times. Crunching the same numbers for "Born This Way," it has generated 180 million online views, while "Pray" has racked up 65 million.

It doesn't seem as though Gaga minds the competition from the Ark Music Factory product, as she reportedly referred to "Friday" as "genius" recently. Black told us she "freaked out" when she heard the compliment from Mother Monster. "I'm 13 and I never thought Lady Gaga would even know my name. I'm the kind of girl that dances to Lady Gaga with a hairbrush in her room at night," Black told MTV News in late March before she notched her YouTube record.

Black is reportedly at work on her second single, "LOL," though a release date for that song has not yet been announced.

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Source: http://www.mtv.com/news/articles/1661773/rebecca-black-friday-youtube-views.jhtml

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Reese Witherspoon Jokes That She's 'Consolation Prize' At 'Water For Elephants' Premiere

Actress talks to MTV News about fans' dedication to co-star Robert Pattinson.
By Aly Semigran, with reporting by Josh Horowitz


Robert Pattinson and Reese Witherspoon at the New York premiere of "Water for Elephants"
Photo: Matt Harper/ MTV News

Reese Witherspoon is certainly no stranger to dealing with the mass hysteria that Robert Pattinson — with his devoted "Twilight" fanbase — brings with him. While filming "Water for Elephants" in Tennessee last year, the Oscar-winning actress recalled to MTV News, "The women lining up outside the set — it was just unbelievable — till 5 o'clock in the morning waiting to just glimpse him."

So it must have felt a bit like déjà vu for Witherspoon at Sunday (April 17) night's world premiere of "Water for Elephants" in New York. Witherspoon and her sought-after co-star (as well as fellow castmembers like Christoph Waltz and Hal Holbrook and director Francis Lawrence) arrived at the famous Ziegfeld Theatre in Manhattan to throngs of eager, screaming RPattz fans. Before hitting the red carpet, both stars crossed the street to greet fans who had braved a major storm over the weekend just to get a peek at them.

After Witherspoon — who arrived without husband Jim Toth — met with fans, she and Pattinson stopped by for a quick chat with MTV News on the red carpet. "I was just signing autographs," said the actress, who wore an elegant white dress to the event.

Rather than begrudge the Pattinson faithful (whom Witherspoon has compared to Leonardo DiCaprio's fans during his "Titanic" heyday), the 35-year-old actress was impressed by those who have been showing their support for "Water for Elephants." "[It's] incredible. Their dedication to the movie, the book," she said, adding, "[and] Rob!"

Witherspoon, who joked that the excited fans "like me OK," realized that Pattinson was, by far, the main attraction at the "Water for Elephants" premiere. "I'm like a consolation prize," Witherspoon kidded about the fans — who, according to Pattinson, were "very nice" — that met her on the red carpet.

Witherspoon has the luxury of not doing as many premieres and public events as her handsome co-star. "I do it once a year," the actress estimated, but added that "it's nice" to interact with fans face-to-face because filming is "so isolated."

"Water for Elephants" opens in theaters on Friday, April 22.

Check out everything we've got on "Water for Elephants."

For young Hollywood news, fashion and "Twilight" updates around the clock, visit HollywoodCrush.MTV.com.

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Source: http://www.mtv.com/news/articles/1662131/reese-witherspoon-water-for-elephants.jhtml

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Beyonce And Jay-Z Have A Lunch Date In Paris

Beyoncé and Jay-Z were snapped out and about again in Paris today. Beyoncé’s gold and black dress goes really well with her ultra-blonde hair, doesn’t it? The gold is almost identical to her hair! I wonder if they are on … Continue reading

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Daniel Radcliffe Talks Avoiding Being Just A 'Child Star'

'Harry Potter' star says he wants to make sure that he's not condemned 'to the been-and-gone pile.'
By Eric Ditzian, with reporting by Josh Horowitz


Daniel Radcliffe
Photo: MTV News

"The next 12 months are going to be quite telling," Daniel Radcliffe told us recently, as he faces the end of the "Harry Potter" franchise and attempts to refashion his career, putting the boy wizard who made him a star firmly behind him.

The 21-year-old Brit has just kicked off his Broadway musical career with the lead in "How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying," a show that will keep him Stateside into next year. He'll be saying goodbye to "Potter" in July, when the second and final part of "The Deathly Hallows" hits theaters, and is looking forward to promoting his starring role in the supernatural thriller "The Woman in Black," which is scheduled for an early 2012 release. Put together, he's got quite a busy year ahead of him, at the end of which, Radcliffe himself admits, he'll be able to tell if he's successfully broken away from "Potter" territory.

Moving past the magical wunderkind is something he wanted to accomplish early and definitively. "If I had been taking some time off and not doing stuff, I think the temptation in terms of the media and the public, to a certain extent, is [that] if you don't hear from a child star for a while, you can kind of condemn them to the been-and-gone pile," he explained. "I wanted to make sure that didn't happen."

His "Potter" co-star Emma Watson seemed to come to a similar conclusion in March, when she announced her intention to take a break from Brown University and focus again on her acting career. "As you know, I love Brown and I love studying pretty much more than anything but recently I've had so much to juggle that being a student AND fulfilling my other commitments has become a little impossible," she wrote on her website, adding that she wanted to "focus on my other professional and acting projects."

Those other projects, like Radcliffe's, have been far different than "Potter" — a conscious decision both of them have made in order to grow artistically. "I wanted to make sure people knew that I wanted to work and I didn't necessarily want to take the easy option of immediately signing up to another huge tent-pole fantasy series," Radcliffe said. "For me, I get very, very bored unless I'm doing something that challenges me and makes me jump through a few hoops."

Are you excited to see what direction Radcliffe's post-"Harry Potter" career takes? Let us know in the comments.

Check out everything we've got on "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 2."

For young Hollywood news, fashion and "Twilight" updates around the clock, visit HollywoodCrush.MTV.com.

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Source: http://www.mtv.com/news/articles/1662155/daniel-radcliffe-child-star.jhtml

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