The best thing about being a rootin’-tootin’ country and western singer is that you’re allowed to offend anyone you want – just look at Tim McGraw.

Last week saw the release of a new Tim McGraw album, and Tim McGraw wants everyone to know how completely sorry he is about it. You see, Tim McGraw was upset because the new album was a Greatest Hits collection and it was full of his most famous old songs that people enjoy listening to, rather than the collection of new bad rubbish that he wanted to release.

So, to counter this, Tim McGraw has released a statement showing his anger at the album’s release and pleading with fans not to buy it. And, in turn, Tim McGraw’s record label’s next release will be a collection of Tim McGraw b-sides all performed by crying children trapped down a well with a tuba player and fanged clown.

You never really equate artistry with the country music scene, do you? Blind patriotism, yes. Alcoholism, yes. Domestic abuse and accusations of paedophilia, yes. Reckless gunplay, yes. But not artistry.

But there’s always an exception to the rule, and in this case it’s Tim McGraw. Tim McGraw is precious about his music. The conception of a new song is a tender, joyous thing to Tim McGraw, especially since he cloaks each new creation in subtle layers of sociopolitical commentary. For instance, did you know that Do You Want Fries With That is actually a critique of the Belsen school hostage crisis? And That’s Why God Made Mexico is a paean to the Jobs and Growth Tax Relief Reconciliation Act of 2003? No, us neither. We just made it up.

But just because all his songs are about chips and Mexicans, it doesn’t mean that Tim McGraw isn’t fiercely protective of his music. We already know that Tim will get medieval on anyone whose wife-beating shenanigans threaten to overshadow his songs, and now he’s proved that he isn’t even afraid to stick it to his own record company.

Last week saw the release of Tim McGraw’s Greatest Hits 3, the latest in the much-loved collection of Tim McGraw Greatest Hits albums that includes Tim McGraw’s Greatest Hits 1 and another one that we’ve forgotten the name of. All the hits are on the new album, from Angry All The Time to a collaboration with Def Leppard that should probably only be played to rapists as a form of punishment.

But McGraw isn’t happy about it, partially because he’s only released one new album since his last Greatest Hits album, and he’s released a statement warning fans about it:

I am saddened and disappointed that my label chose to put out another hits album instead of new music. I’ve only had one studio album since my last hits package. It has to be just as confusing to the fans as it is to me. I had no involvement in the creation or presentation of this record. Sure I love the songs, and I don’t want to take anything away from all the creative people who were a part of making those records. But the whole concept is an embarrassment to me as an artist. In the spirit of an election year, I would simply say to my fans ‘I’m Tim McGraw and I don’t approve their message.’

A procession of Greatest Hits albums is always a sign that an artist is creatively on the slide, and we’re sure that Tim McGraw is aware of this. He’s currently working on a brand new studio album, and he’d obviously rather be judged on that than a tired old repackaging of his older work.

So let’s hope Tim McGraw hurries up and releases this new album of his. He’d better, because there’s a Greatest Hits 4 album is due out next Wednesday, and at the moment it hasn’t got any flipping songs in it.

Quickly – who won at the Oscars this year? You can't remember, can you.

It's OK, nor can anyone. Because this year, the Oscars weren't about stupid things like 'films' and 'artistic excellence' – they were about Gary Busey drooling all over Jennifer Garner's neck until she looked like she was about to cry.

And now, about six weeks after everyone forgot that he even did it, Gary Busey has issued a statement apologising to Jennifer Garner for any distress he caused. Apparently he was aiming his spittle for her cleavage or something. He didn't say that, exactly, but it'd just make sense.

Generally speaking, the Oscars are a bit like Christmas. You get excited for the big day, you can't turn anywhere without being swarmed with reminders about it, and then three days after it's finished you can't remember who gave you what and the four kilograms of Haribo you ate in 36 hours have left you feeling like your brain's about to implode.

But not this year, though. This year will go down in history as the year that Gary Busey went mental at the Oscars, started screaming at Ryan Seacrest and then tried to maul the neck off Jennifer Garner with his mouth. It was a beautiful thing to watch – so much so that we didn't even bother to question why someone like Gary Busey was even at the Oscars in the first place. 

A few days later Gary Busey phoned Ryan Seacrest's radio show ostensibly to apologise, except that he didn't realise that he was on the air and just banged on abstractly about how Seacrest was an "innocent champion of honesty" and the art of catching dreams for a bit. Which is all very well and good, except that poor Jennifer Garner didn't get the apologetic Gary Busey treatment.

Until now. Even though the Oscars happened about a month ago, Gary Busey has chosen to release a statement apologising to Jennifer Garner for making her look genuinely terrified in front of an audience of millions. Well, we say 'apologise'… The Associated Press reports:

"I meant no disrespect to Ms. Jennifer Garner when I met her at the Oscars and apologize if I made her uncomfortable," the 63-year-old actor said in a statement e-mailed Monday by a publicist for his attorney, Vicki Roberts. By the time he realized Garner and Linney were being interviewed, Busey said he tried to step back but "suddenly Ryan introduced her to me… I simply greeted both actresses with joy and open arms, which is the way I would greet anyone I'm happy to meet," Busey said. "Everyone has experienced a handshake or hug which has turned awkward, and this was no different."

To be fair, Gary Busey does have a point – we've experienced plenty of hugs which have turned awkward in the past, so we know exactly where he's coming from. And, coincidentally, most of those hugs have turned awkward because we've furiously started licking at the other person's neck as well. Funny, that.

Anyway, now that Gary Busey's conscience is clear he can slowly dissolve away into big-toothed anonymity again – but things won't be so easy for Jennifer Garner. After all, thanks to video footage of the incident hundreds of millions of lonely men now know that Jennifer Garner pulls one of the most adorable faces you've ever seen if you suddenly lunge in and kiss her on the neck. Who wouldn't want to try that for themselves?

Read more:

Busey Apologizes for Red Carpet Blunder – AP 

We've all seen those seatbelt adverts where a car crashes and the seatbeltless passenger gets turned into a mound of whimpering goo – but imagine if that mound of goo was Miley Cyrus.

You'd be distraught, wouldn't you. Miley would have left this world leaving us with only two albums, a slightly annoying TV show and a 3D movie of a concert to remember her by. And that could have been the case after a scene from the Miley Cyrus movie clearly showed Miley Cyrus and her dad Billy Ray Cyrus riding around in a car without a seatbelt on.

But now Billy Ray Cyrus has publicly apologised for their lack of caution. That's not enough, though – we'll only rest when Billy Ray Cyrus wears a seatbelt all the time, even when he's walking around his house or going to the toilet. And if the belt could be wound around his mouth or neck, then that's even better.

Miley Cyrus is undoubtedly an influential person. Thanks to her show Hannah Montana, her pop albums and her latest box office-topping 3D movie, there's a vast army of tweens who hang on Miley's every word. If Miley Cyrus started wearing yellow shoes, her fans would all start wearing yellow shoes. If Miley Cyrus started swanning around in top hats and talking in an unconvincing Swiss accent, then her fans would do the same. Point is, Miley Cyrus is a massive role model.

And that means when Miley Cyrus is filmed not wearing a seatbelt, millions of young girls around the world will immediately think it's cool to unbuckle their seatbelts and pray for their parents swerve off the road and plough into a tree at 100mph. That's not an exaggeration – millions of young girls will literally do exactly that.

The outrage caused by the scene in the movie Hannah Montana/Miley Cyrus: Best Of Both Worlds Concert Tour showing Miley Cyrus and Billy Ray Cyrus not wearing seatbelts has been so overwhelming that you'd think it showed the pair of them smoking crack through a hollowed-out endangered salamander, humping nuns and discussing how brilliant suicide terrorists are – but nevertheless it threatens to ruin everything that Miley Cyrus has achieved so far in her career.

To counter this, Billy Ray Cyrus himself has decided to apologise to the entire world through People magazine:

"We got caught up in the moment of filming, and we made a mistake and forgot to buckle our seatbelts," Billy Ray Cyrus tells PEOPLE about a gaffe in the hit 3-D movie Hannah Montana/Miley Cyrus: Best of Both Worlds Concert Tour – one that's caused a head-on collision with controversy. "Seatbelt safety is extremely important," he adds.

In addition, Miley Cyrus is thought to be planning a seatbelt-awareness pop album to further make amends, entitled Seatbelts Like Totally Rule. The first single from that album – Oops! I Almost Got Mangled To Death – will be released shortly.

No, not really – and the fact that it was Billy Ray Cyrus and not Miley Cyrus who spoke out about the controversy speaks volumes about how much she regrets the mistake. Then again, if Billy Ray Cyrus was our dad, we'd probably encourage the likelihood of death as well.

Read more:

Billy Ray Apologizes for Not Buckling Up – People 

We've known for some time that 'sorry' isn't the hardest thing for Robbie Williams to say – because that would be "Cream cakes? No thanks, I'm full."

And just to prove how quick to apologise he is, Robbie Williams has just said sorry to former Take That manager Nigel Martin Smith because he claimed in a song that Smith was a thief who stole funds from Take That's earnings when actually he wasn't. And it was one of the most heartfelt apologies we've ever heard, with a lawyer making a forced, court-ruled apology on behalf of Robbie Williams in his absence to a lawyer accepting the apology on behalf of Nigel Martin Smith in his absence in a courtroom. However, it's not all good news – if Robbie Williams is back in the news, does that mean he's famous again?

Does a falling tree make any sound if nobody is there to hear it? It's an important question, because we're in the middle of a similar, yet slightly updated, conundrum – if Robbie Williams libels you in an album that nobody buys, does it still count as libel?

Actually, it's not a conundrum at all, because it turns out that actually it is libel and if you take Robbie Williams to court for it there's a chance he'll end up paying you half a million quid and saying how sorry he is.

That's what's just happened to Nigel Martin Smith, anyway. You'll remember Nigel Martin Smith as the former manager of Take That, and the man who Robbie Williams has held a near-compulsive grudge against for over a decade. The grudge revealed itself most explicitly on a track called The 90's on Robbie Williams' latest album Rudebox, where Robbie apparently claimed that Martin Smith had stolen money from the band.

Whether this is true or not we just don't know – latest statistics show that Robbie Williams only actually sold one copy of Rudebox, and that was to his Mum, and she hasn't got round to listening to it yet. But even though Robbie Williams changed the lyrics to The 90's at the first sniff of trouble, Nigel Martin Smith still came after him.

And the case resolved itself this morning when Robbie Williams was ordered to pay Nigel Martin Smith an undisclosed sum of damages – thought to be somewhere around the £500,000 mark – and publicly apologise to him. Robbie Williams didn't do that himself – he stayed in LA where it's cheaper to work through 60 cigarettes, 36 double espressos, 20 cans of Red Bull and all sorts of Seroxat every day – but his lawyer did an awfully good job of apologising quite profusely:

"Robbie Williams wishes to make it clear to his fans, and the public at large, that he did not intend these lyrics to be taken at face value. Specifically, Robbie Williams did not intend to allege that Nigel Martin Smith has ever stolen any funds from Take That or anyone. Prior to the release of Rudebox, the lyrics to The 90's were changed by Robbie Williams in order to avoid any further misunderstanding. Nonetheless, Robbie Williams wishes now to apologise publicly and unreservedly for the distress that the original publication of those lyrics caused to Nigel."

And now that's all over, perhaps Robbie Williams and Nigel Martin Smith will be able to put their differences behind them and maybe even become friends. It's not like they have nothing in common, is it? Nigel Martin Smith and Robbie Williams are both northern, tubby and have their best work behind them – plus if two grown men can't bond over a deep resentment that Gary Barlow is more successful than they are, what can they bond over?

Read more:

Robbie Pays Dear For 'Outrageous' Lyrics – Sky