Sideshow: Swift's new album targets an ex-beau

Taylor Swift's new album, Red, which is out Monday, is a statement, nay a veritable testament, to the young woman's maturation as a person, as an individual, and as an independent soul, says the country-pop star with a thousand ex-boyfriends.

The album is "a definitive portrait of how I felt when I finally stopped caring what my ex thought of me," Swift, 22, tells USA Today.

But Swift, whose celeb ex-beaus include Joe Jonas, Taylor Lautner, John Mayer, and Jake Gyllenhaal (that's a lot of livin' for one so young), says she hasn't completely transcended those elemental feelings of anger, jealousy, rage, envy, bitterness, and resentment that come after a particularly nasty breakup. One ex-beau continues to haunt her, so she used the album to take revenge on the guy.

"[He] made me feel like I wasn't as good or as relevant as these hipster bands he listened to," says the pride of Wyomissing, Pa., who moved to Nashville at 14. "So I made a song that I knew would absolutely drive him crazy when he heard it on the radio. Not only would it hopefully be played a lot, so that he'd have to hear it, but it's the opposite of the kind of music that he was trying to make me feel inferior to."

Thus the album's crackin' hit single, "We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together."

Swift is currently courting a member of that rarefied royal American family, the Kennedys, Conor Kennedy. But she won't discuss the 18-year-old. That's not to say details of their fling won't eventually come out.

"My fans don't feel like I hold anything back from them," Taylor says. "They know whatever I'm going through now, they'll hear about it on a record someday." Poor Conor, to know that one day he'll become nothing but fodder, chum, slop, and sausage filling for a Swift album.

American Idol czar Nigel Lythgoe says the infamous Mariah Carey-Nicki Minaj blood feud is no publicity stunt, since it blew up long before the show went on the air. Asked whether he had cooked up the whole thing as a PR stunt, he told TMZ, "I have no idea why I would be doing it [for ratings] five months before the show went out." He added, "I would only do anything for ratings a month before the show went out. They've got my timing wrong."

Guess that means come December, a month before Idol's January premiere, we'll hear news that Minaj and Carey have carved each other's face off.

Comic, rapper, and Next Friday actor Mike Epps may just have landed the role of a lifetime: Playing legendary comedian Richard Pryor in a biopic. Now, Epps already is set to appear as Pryor in a supporting role in a forthcoming biopic about renowned warbler Nina Simone. TMZ says Epps asked Pryor's widow, Jennifer Pryor, for her blessing to take the smaller role - a move that so impressed her she may tap him to play the role again in a major Pryor biopic she is producing.

What about rumors Eddie Murphy will star as Pryor? "Having Eddie Murphy play Richard Pryor would be like having Al Jolson play Malcolm X," Jennifer tells TMZ, referring to the white actor who played African Americans in blackface. Harsh! Pryor "would want someone authentic like himself" to play him, Jennifer said.

Former stoner dude, young husband and stepfather, Silicon Valley entrepreneur, social-media leader, and sitcom star Ashton Kutcher is thriving since splitting up with Demi Moore. Financially, at least. The Two and a Half Men star tops Forbes' latest absurd experiment in money-based list-making, the Highest Paid TV Actor list, having made $24 mil over the last 12 months. House star Hugh Laurie and Ray Romano are tied in second place, with $18 mil each. The bulk of Romano's earnings isn't from his canceled TNT comedy, Men of a Certain Age, but from Everybody Loves Raymond reruns. Alec Baldwin (30 Rock) and NCIS' Mark Harmon tie for fourth place, with $15 mil each.

Dancing With the Stars pros Anna Trebunskaya, 31, who was partnered with Drew Lachey on this season's all-star edition, and Jonathan Roberts, 38, are splitting after nine years of marriage.

"[After] much soul searching, we have decided to end our marriage," they tell People, adding that they remain "committed to staying friends and dance partners."    

Celebs do like to give their kids unique, odd, fantastical, or downright idiotic names. Uma Thurman, 42, and her post-Ethan Hawke soul mate Arpad Busson, 49, are no exception. They've finally released the full name of their daughter, who was born July 15: Rosalind Arusha Arkadina Altalune Florence Thurman-Busson. She's "better known to family and friends as Luna," Uma's rep tells People.