Posted by Andrew Unterberger on 01/02/2012 at 10:30 AM News

The Popdust Files: justin bieber, miley cyrus, mtv, punk'd

Can you believe it’s been nearly a half-decade since Ashton Kutcher last tricked a celebrity into thinking some catastrophic (or at the very least day-ruining) event had occurred to them out of nowhere? Indeed it has, but with the new year comes a brand new spate of “Punk’d” episodes for us normies to get our schadenfreude fixes with. However, Kutcher will not be resuming his hosting duties—that responsibility will instead fall to a series of guest hosts, the first batch of which were announced recently, and include pop stars Miley Cyrus and Justin Bieber. (Biebs, if you remember, was originally rumored to be Kutcher’s permanent replacement, though perhaps he realized what a big trucker hat that was to fill all on his own.)

“There’s a new generation of unsuspecting suckers just waiting to be Punk’d by their famous friends, and fans will once again have a front row seat to see the shock on the faces of their favorite celebs,” predicts MTV exec Van Toffler predicts. Well, for us here at Popdust, we won’t feel safe on the streets until after these episodes air, and will be peeping for pop stars behind every bush and inside every shady-looking van. (Not that we consider ourselves Punk-worthy or anything, but….well, you never know.)