Superstar Rihanna has sued her former accountants for mismanaging the singer’s finances, including claiming they earned huge commissions from concert tours that resulted in her losing millions of dollars.

In a lawsuit filed in Manhattan federal court that surfaced on Thursday, the 24-year-old singer and her tour company, Tourihanna, is seeking an unspecified amount of compensatory damages and loss of earnings from accountancy firm Berdon LLP and former employees Michael Mitnick and Peter Gounis.

The suit, first filed late in Tuesday ahead of the July 4 U.S. holiday, claims the accounting firm caused “significant financial losses” between 2005 and 2010 by charging “exorbitant” commissions from Rihanna’s 2010 “Last Girl on Earth Tour.” It also accuses Berdon of mishandling Rihanna’s foreign and domestic taxes and failing to monitor unpaid song royalties.

American Idol judge and Aerosmith frontman Steven Tyler decided on Thursday to leave his job as a judge on top-rated television singing contest “American Idol.”

Tyler expressed that his reason for leaving is due to needing to return to focusing on his first love, Aerosmith.

Tyler’s fellow “American Idol” judge, Jennifer Lopez, also is contemplating whether to return to the program that once reigned supreme atop U.S. TV ratings but has seen its audience shrink in recent years.

“I strayed from my first love, Aerosmith, and I’m back,” the band’s lead singer said in a statement.

“I’ve decided it’s time for me to let go of my mistress ‘American Idol’ before she boils my rabbit,” Tyler added, in a reference to the thriller movie, “Fatal Attraction.” “I got two fists in the air, and I’m kicking the door open with my band.”

If Justin Bieber were your boyfriend, you’d probably spend a lot of time in parkades. The pop star’s “Boyfriend” video debuted Thursday night — amassing more than 2 million views on YouTube by this morning. Shot in L.A., it’s a straightforward concept: Bieber and some Step Up 2 extras somehow drive to the top of some building, then spend the afternoon dancing and pulling donuts in their “swaggy” muscle cars. And, just like the song, the video finds Bieber making an incredibly easy pitch to the ladies: be his girlfriend. Please.

A dream date with JB, however, isn’t exactly what he promises in the lyrics. There’s no fireside fondue, no trips around the world. Instead, Bieber’s special lady has to be content watching him dance, watching him lead a sing-a-long, watching him show off his hella cool wheels. And she has to share him with an extensive cast of extras — but then, that’s a feeling millions of Beliebers have long since grown used to.

And for a tune that’s supposed to usher in the just-turned-18-year-old’s “mature” new era, the vibe isn’t that much different from his break-out clip, “Baby.” Bieber is still singing and dancing — dreamily — with a crew of kids. He has his driver’s license this time, though. That’s something.

For more than a month, Bieber had been teasing the video’s premiere with preview clips — including 45 seconds of footage aired during an April episode of The Voice. Those clips, as we mentioned yesterday, were directed by Colin Tilley (the “Boyfriend” video was helmed by Director X), and featured Bieber in a variety of impressionistic scenes — strikingly different from sunny vibe of the final cut. Some of those scenes are used in the opening of “Boyfriend,” and as Bieber explained during an interview with MTV last night, the change-up was just him playing with his fans.

“I kind of switched it up from all the teasers,” Bieber said. “I switched up the whole video on them, and really, I think it’s super cool. I wanted to do something a little bit more mature.”

Just because “Boyfriend” is here doesn’t mean Bieber’s going to stop being a little tease. During his interview with MTV, he revealed he already has new tidbits to shill, all leading up to the June 19 release of upcoming album, Believe.

“My next single is better,” he told MTV after “Boyfriend’s” premiere. “I think it’s ‘As Long As You Love Me.’ It’s like mid-tempo. I just think it’s edgy. It’s something I can hear on the radio. It’s going to get stuck in people’s heads,” he said, also revealing tentative plans to release another track, written for his mom. “I think I’m going to put it out on Mother’s Day,” he said. “I don’t know if it’s going on the album.”

You probably could’ve guessed it was a Beach Boys show just by the shirts the men in the audience wore: Collared, short-sleeved and oversized, with palm trees, hibiscus flowers and nautical gear printed all over them.

At the back of the stage, surfboards were lined up like Grecian columns on either side of a huge video screen. It wasn’t until midway through the band’s second set that Mike Love acknowledged what half the people in the audience must’ve been thinking: “It’s, uh, been a little while since we’ve all been on tour together.”

This year, the Beach Boys turn 50. Until the Grammys this past February, Brian Wilson, the band’s troubled heart, hadn’t been on stage with the rest of them since 1996. The tour kickoff last night at the Anselmo Valencia Amphitheater in Tucson was, in that sense, a milestone: not only a marker of their anniversary, but of a public reconciliation between Wilson and the band’s other surviving original members: Al Jardine, Bruce Johnson, David Marks and Wilson’s cousin, Mike Love.

It’s not until a band like the Beach Boys runs through their hits back-to-back in rapid succession that you realize just how many hits they’ve had. Over the course of nearly two and a half hours, they played an astonishing 42 songs, many of them medley-style, with nearly no banter in between. Amid the most familiar stuff — “California Girls,” “Surfin’ Safari,” “Good Vibrations” — were a healthy number of deep cuts and covers, including “Why Do Fools Fall in Love” and Phil Spector’s “Then He Kissed Me,” which Jardine probably wisely rephrased as “Then I Kissed Her.” There were also two uncanny video appearances by Carl and Dennis Wilson, both of whom died years ago. (Dennis “sang” “Forever,” while Carl took on “God Only Knows,” a song Brian wrote for him on 1966′s Pet Sounds.) And about halfway through the second set, something new showed up: A reflective midtempo ballad called “That’s Why God Made the Radio” — a moment that, like so much of the band’s best music, elevated the adolescent to the divine.

Onstage, Mike Love was a low-key kind of showboat, stepping back and forth with the beat, miming the revving of a motorcycle engine on “Little Honda” and hugging his elbows when he sang “and the northern girls with the way they kiss, they keep their boyfriends warm at night” on “California Girls.” Brian seemed placid and stone-faced, sitting at the bench of a large white grand piano. “Ladies and gentlemen, Brian Wilson,” Al Jardine said after “This Whole World,” at which point the crowd rose to their feet in reverence as he sat, blinking. In a sense, Love and Wilson have always been spiritual opposites: Brian wanted to escape to the solace of his bed on “In My Room”; Mike wanted to escape to the solace of tropical beaches on “Kokomo.” They are as strange a pair as they’ve ever been, but it’s their balance — between Brian’s quiet yearning and Mike’s inability to have anything short of a good time — that creates the band’s strange chemistry.

And while this was in some ways a show about Brian Wilson, the Beach Boys are a highly professional enterprise that depend on highly professional people. At any given time there were between six and fifteen hands on stage, including multitaskers on various saxophones and someone to pick up the French horn on “God Only Knows,” the harmonica on “Heroes and Villains” and the theremin for “Good Vibrations.” Oh, and do that singing thing they do, too.

Considering it was the first night of a semi-momentous reunion tour, there wasn’t a whole lot of sentimentality going back and forth, which isn’t to say the band didn’t care about each other, only that they probably cared about the audience more. There were moments, though, between the childhood photographs of the band flashing on the big screen and the brief congratulations they gave each other between songs, that the weight of their history together was felt. At the end of “When I Grow Up (To Be a Man),” Al Jardine looked at the floor, shook his head and laughed. In the 50 years between then and now, they’d grown up.

Throughout the night, a security guard patiently collected beach balls that had traveled through the crowd, stockpiling them behind a large speaker at stage right. By the end of the second set, the pile had reached halfway up the speakers to the jumbo screen, where Brian’s white grand piano lingered on the screen for a second, then disappeared. During the encore he batted them back into the crowd, one by one.

Setlist
“Do It Again”
“Catch A Wave”
“Don’t Back Down”
“Surfin’ Safari”
“Surfer Girl”
“The Little Girl I Once Knew”
“Wendy”
“Then He Kissed Me” (Phil Spector/The Crystals)
“This Whole World”
“Why Do Fools Fall in Love” (Frankie Lymon and the Teenagers)
“When I Grow Up (To Be a Man)”
“You’re So Good to Me”
“In Them Old Cottonfields Back Home”
“Be True to Your School”
“Disney Girls”
“Please Let Me Wonder”
“Don’t Worry Baby”
“Little Honda”
“Little Deuce Coupe”
“409″
“Shut Down”
“I Get Around”
“Sloop John B”
“Wouldn’t It Be Nice”
“Forever”
“Sail On Sailor”
“Heroes and Villains”
“In My Room”
“All This Is That”
“God Only Knows”
“That’s Why God Made the Radio”
“California Dreaming” (The Mamas and the Papas)
“California Girls”
“Dance Dance Dance”
“All Summer Long”
“Help Me Rhonda”
“Rock and Roll Music” (Chuck Berry)
“Barbara Ann”
“Surfin’ U.S.A.”
Encore:
“Kokomo”
“Good Vibrations”
“Fun Fun Fun”

Boy band fever is storming the music scene in the United States, led by the Brits who are breaking away from the slick, squeaky-clean image of old as they battle to become America’s newest pin-ups.

The five young men of The Wanted take on their baby-faced rivals One Direction with their self-titled debut EP released this week, following One Direction’s No. 1 first album on the U.S. Billboard charts last month.

It’s more than 10 years since New Kids on the Block, Backstreet Boys and N’Sync ruled the U.S. music scene and sent hordes of screaming young girls to record stores.

In Britain, boy bands have never gone out of fashion, although the new breed appears to have grown up.

If One Direction are the co-ordinated, clean-cut, media-savvy boy band, The Wanted are the rebellious antidote, uncensored by their team and left to win over audiences by goofing around with each other, and the media.

“We’re different, we all play instruments, we don’t dance and we don’t dress very well,” The Wanted’s Tom Parker told Reuters.

The Wanted – Parker, Max George, Siva Kaneswaran, Jay McGuiness and Nathan Sykes, aged between 19 and 23 – were put together after mass auditions in the U.K. in 2009, and are managed by Scooter Braun, the mastermind behind Canadian teen idol Justin Bieber.

“All the acts that I manage are built organically and they all get to be exactly who they are,” said Braun, 30, who encourages The Wanted to be open about drinking, partying and dating girls.

“I used to be a party promoter the last time boy bands were huge, and I knew a lot of those guys, and they like to party and drink and do all that stuff too. But they always had to hide it, and I think it’s refreshing to see a boy band that doesn’t hide it and that doesn’t care,” Braun added.

One Direction – formed of Liam Payne, Harry Styles, Zayn Malik, Louis Tomlinson and Niall Horan, all aged between 18 and 20 – were put together in 2010, and are managed by Simon Cowell.

One Direction’s image is more carefully groomed and choreographed in the vein of the boy band stereotype but that didn’t stop a controversial romance between Styles and a British TV presenter 15 years his senior, prior to the band making their U.S. debut.

“We don’t mind at all being called a boy band, we’re just lads in a band. But I think we’re trying to do something a little bit different…it’s a bit more relaxed, lads having fun, we do what we want,” said One Direction’s Payne.

Both bands fall squarely into the pop genre, with One Direction embracing innocent, fun love songs such as with their lead single “What Makes You Beautiful,” which peaked at No. 4 on the Billboard Hot 100.

The Wanted have taken a more adult route, with heavier dance beats and raunchier music videos such as their single “Glad You Came,” peaking at No. 3 on the Billboard Hot 100 singles chart.

“Their music is really different to ours and I think anyone can see that, and you can like one or the other or both,” said The Wanted’s McGuiness.

“A lot of people expect boy bands to cater music exclusively to young girls…we accept that a lot of young girls do like us, but we respect their musical choice as much as we respect a 50-year-old dude,” McGuiness added.

DIRECTIONERS VS. TEAM WANTED

The Wanted have received mixed critical reviews for their debut EP in the United States, released this week.

August Brown at the Los Angeles Times said that while The Wanted were “saucier and sleeker” than One Direction, their music wasn’t “nearly as fun,” while Maura Johnston at Rolling Stone said “their dance pop droops where it should bounce.”

Devoted fans, known as “Directioners” and “Team Wanted,” compete on Twitter to make the bands a trending topic, and have been a fundamental part in driving sales.
“As much as we don’t try to be perfect all the time, we knew America had an idea of boy bands…we have to thank them because they welcomed us with open arms, and we could never have expected it,” said McGuiness.

One Direction’s first album, “Up All Night,” sold more than 176,000 copies in its first week, entering the Billboard 200 album chart at No. 1 and making history as the first UK band to debut at the top with their first album.

The Wanted also look set to chart high, currently at No. 7 on iTunes.

One Direction has more than 5 million fans on Facebook and 3.2 million “Directioners” following on Twitter, while The Wanted have more than 1.6 million fans on Facebook and 500,000 Twitter followers.

Parker from The Wanted called the adulation “pretty weird at times” and Horan from One Direction admitted he gets a “bit scared” when their female fan base are driven into a frenzy.

Manager Braun brushes off critics who dismiss boy bands as mere manufactured creations.

“People forget that the Beatles were once a cheesy boy band – that’s what America other than the teenage girls thought. But then they kept making great records…when you make great songs, everyone else just shuts up,” said Braun.

Jennifer Lopez is hitting the road this summer, and she’s taking Enrique Iglesias with her.

The “American Idol” judge is set to launch a 60-date world tour in South America in June and will be joined by her “Mouth 2 Mouth” duet partner Iglesias. A source close to Lopez told Celebuzz she “is very excited about him joining the tour.”

“This will be a huge tour, complete with a lavish set, full band and team of dancers,” the source added.

While concert promoter AEG has not confirmed all dates, Lopez and Iglesias will reportedly visit the United States, South America, Europe and Asia this summer after this season of “Idol” concludes. The tour will make its way through Venezuela, Chile, Argentina and Brazil before returning to the U.S. for a planned second round of production rehearsals with shows beginning here in mid-July.

Whitney Houston’s ex-husband Bobby Brown pleaded not guilty on Monday to a charge of drunk driving and driving on a suspended license in Los Angeles last month.

43-year-old Brown did not appear in court for Monday’s hearing and his plea was entered by his lawyer. A pre-trial hearing was set for May 16.

Brown was arrested on March 26, about six weeks after the sudden death of Houston, when police pulled him over for talking on his cellphone while driving. He then failed a sobriety test, police said.

Nick Lachey has confirmed that former boy band 98 degress will not be hitting the road for a summer tour this year.

A report by Rumorfix picked up traction from several outlets in late March after the band’s formerly stagnant website reportedly posted an update regarding a 15-city reunion tour. At the time, band member Jeff Timmons tweeted: “Look, you can never believe rumors, but I’d be open to it for sure!”

Lachey ended those rumors on Thursday, tweeting that he was “So psyched to see all the excitement for a 98 degree tour, but the only tour I’ll be doing this summer is at baby’s ‘r us!” The singer does appear to be open to the idea in the future, adding the hashtag “#neversaynever.”

98 Degrees is best known for their pop hits “Because of You,” “The Hardest Thing” and “Give Me Just One Night (Una Noche).” The group released five albums, including one holiday disc, between 1996 and 2002. The band has yet to reunite over the past 10 years, but all have pursued additional projects.

Latin pop singer Marc Anthony has filed for divorce from singer and actress Jennifer Lopez, ending their seven-year marriage.

Anthony filed the petition under his real name Marco Muniz on Monday in Los Angeles Superior Court, citing irreconcilable differences. The couple announced in July that they were splitting up.

Anthony also filed for joint legal and physical custody of the couple’s 4-year-old twins, Max and Emme.

Nicki Minaj scores her second No. 1 album on the Billboard 200 as “Pink Friday: Roman Reloaded” debuts atop the list with 253,000 copies sold, according to Nielsen SoundScan.

“Pink Friday: Roman Reloaded” is not a reissue of the original “Pink Friday” album — despite its confusing title. It’s an all-new release, led by its official first single “Starships.” The track has already sailed to No. 5 on the Billboard Hot 100.

The album that “Roman Reloaded” replaces, Madonna’s “MDNA,” falls to No. 8 with 48,000 (down 86.7%) It debuted at No. 1 last week with 359,000. Its steep drop is the largest second-week percentage decline for a No. 1-debuting album since Nielsen SoundScan began tracking sales in 1991.

It surpasses the record set by Lady Gaga’s “Born This Way,” when it fell 84.27% in its second week on the chart dated June 18, 2011. “Born This Way” bowed the previous frame at No. 1 with 1.11 million, and then sold 174,000 in its second week at the top of the chart.