Sideshow: Adele's '25' rewrites all the record records

Know how they said Adele's new album, 25, might sell 4 million copies by Christmas? Not gonna happen. It's going to blast that figure right out of the duck pond! As of Monday, it had sold 4 million units in the United States alone. As of Tuesday, it was approaching 6 million. Worldwide sales aren't in, but they won't subtract.

It's unprecedented, no matter how you slice the head cheese. In an era when no one's s'posed to be buying albums anymore, 25 destroyed and mutilated the old first-week sales record of 2.4 million set by NSync's album No Strings Attached back in prehysterical 2000 - in its first four days out! Then she became the first artist to sell 3 million copies of an album in one week. She's done five very smart things: (1) She made a good album with (2) A smashing first single, "Hello," that (3) Became a craze with an excellent video; (4) She didn't give it to any streaming service (you had to store-buy or download it); and (5) Happy holidays, great gift idea! "Hello's" vid buried the YouTube viewing record, with 48 million in its first two days, 90 million in the first four, and it's shot past 600 million views by now. It was the first single ever to sell more than a million downloads in its first day. It's been atop the Billboard Hot 100 for the last five weeks.

Mariah Carey played a show at Pier 1 in New York Tuesday - and landed in the hospital, on an IV, diagnosed with severe flu. She'd better get better: She's slated to do Hot 97's Hot for the Holidays show at the Prudential Center in Newark, N.J., on Saturday.

Holidays aren't always smooth, not even for celebs. TMZ reports that over the post-Turkey weekend, Halima Rashid, wife of Jermaine Jackson, was arrested at their Woodland Hills, Calif., home and booked for alleged felony corporal injury of Jermaine, her spouse since 2004. She was later released on $50,000 bail. This ain't just throwing rolling pins - reports say teeth were involved. Hers.

If we totally ignored this story, you'd never speak to us again, so. . . . Fox Studios released a statement Tuesday that in his new film, The Revenant, the lovely Leonardo DiCaprio is not raped by a bear. Who said he was? Some Web jockey saw a scene where Mama Bear attacks Leo, and saw not one rape but two! Hilarious Internet viralized insane Bear-rapes-Leo mania! Fox insists, do you hear?, Mama's protecting her babies, not looking to make 'em with our Leo. Surreal: P.R. by saying something did not happen. Aren't you relieved for Leo, though?

Compiled by Inquirer staff.