It's official: Avril Lavigne will not tour the US before next year.

The Canadian-born punk-pop singer, whose latest album, The Best Damn Thing, debuted at number one in the U.S, will instead play some summer festival dates in Europe and Asia.

Meanwhile, plagiarism allegations continue to fly at Lavigne's most recent work. No sooner had collaborator Chantal Kreviazuk retracted her claim that Lavigne had stolen one of her songs, when new charges surfaced on YouTube that the Canadian singer directly copied Peaches' 'I'm The Kind Bitch' with her track 'I Don't Have To Try.'

Lavigne is still being sued by members of The Rubinoos over claims she copied portions of their song 'I Wanna Be Your Boyfriend' for her track 'Girlfriend'.

And if that wasn't enough controversy, Lavigne also appeared to pose topless for the most recent issue of Blender magazine. Once this had brought her the desired storm of publicity, the singer claimed she had in fact been wearing a skin-coloured boob-tube, its edges disguised by the magazine's cover text.

This is only the latest commotion in Avril Lavigne's event-packed career, which took off with her debut album, Let Go, released when she was 17 years old.

That album won eight Grammy nominations and four Juno Awards (including Album of the Year and New Artist of the Year) and sold more than 16 million copies worldwide.

Since then Lavigne has released two further albums, married Sum 41's Deryck Whibley and branched out into acting, appearing in Richard Linklater's Fast Food Nation and lending her voice to Dreamworks' animated film Over the Hedge.

This Summer Lavigne is also covering John Lennon's 'Imagine' on the Instant Karma benefit album, designed to raise awareness and support for the embattled Darfur region of Sudan.