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Chad Johnson is advising Aaron Rodgers to pump the brakes on a potential return to the Jets this season ... telling TMZ Sports the star quarterback needs to chill before he reinjures himself.

The Bengals legend didn't mince words when discussing the topic with us this week, saying straight up, "Don't come back. You'll hurt yourself."

Johnson never had to deal with a torn Achilles during his NFL career ... but he certainly saw others go down with the injury in his 11 years in the league, and he's now warning Rodgers to not rush back this year.

"Don't do it," he said. "You're going to reinjure yourself. It's too soon."

Of course, 39-year-old Rodgers -- who tore his Achilles back on September 11 -- appears to be doing all he can to come rescue the 4-4 Jets despite outside concerns ... progressing to the point where he's now taking dropbacks and firing off passes during pregame warmups.

While Johnson is clearly impressed with the recovery so far ... he was adamant that he doesn't believe it's a good idea to return to NFL action so quickly.

"You have to understand," Johnson said, "there are few injuries that you don't want to play with. You don't want to play with anything having to do with your groin, your Achilles, or your knees. You don't rush back from those."

"I don't care what your doctors tell you."

Instead, Johnson is hopeful Rodgers will take the whole year off, get to 100 percent ... and then be ready for the 2024 season.

Brie Larson's looks over the years are simply Marvel-ous!

Here is a 13-year-old version of the young actress in Hollywood showcasing a youthful curled hairstyle at a "Crossroads" movie premiere at Grauman's Chinese Theatre back in 2002 (left). This was the same time she played Emily Stewart -- Bob Saget's daughter -- in "Raising Dad."

And, more than 2 decades later ... the Marvel studios star has been showing off her natural beauty and glow -- most recently during Paris Fashion Week (right) -- as well as hitting the big screen this weekend, playing the rebellious Carol Danvers in "The Marvels."

The question here is ...

'RHOC' alum Elizabeth Lyn Vargas has put her beautiful desert home back on the market after makin' some changes ... and the spot could be yours if you have nearly $9 million to spend.

TMZ broke the story, Elizabeth first put the Palm Springs-area spot for sale in March 2022, but it looks like no one chomped down on the $9.95 million price tag.

We're told she's since made some major renovations to the property -- including a full exterior paint job and a complete redo of the kitchen. It's now back on the market, but she's only asking for $8.995 mil -- that's a million less than previous.

The 10,000-square-foot home is located in the gated community of La Quinta Polo Estates and comes with landscaped gardens and greenery that surround a large koi pond with over 300 fish.

It's got 6 bedrooms and 8 bathrooms, and the property's covered with sweet perks like a sparkling pool, tennis court and loads of fruit trees.

Behind this mashed-up pic is a St. Louis native who recently celebrated her birthday. She's got a big heart, and she's here to show you just "What Lovers Do!" Put your celeb knowledge to the test, and see if you can guess this scrambled star!

This sizzlin' celeb is hitting the stage for this weekend's Camp Flog Gnaw music festival. Yes, she owned the stage earlier this year on "Saturday Night Live," but she's also written music for music hotshots like Rihanna and Beyoncé.

"I might kill my ex, not the best idea."

A German man had his front door pounded on by an angry pro-Palestine protester after the guy flew an Israeli flag from his balcony ... this as a demonstration was going on outside.

Check out this wild video that was taken and posted by a man named Finn Wandhoff, who lives in Berlin and who was watching a massive pro-Palestine rally take place right outside his apartment Saturday evening. It seems he decided to voice his own view symbolically.

Finn says he flew a flag of Israel from outside his window -- a moment he says precipitated this door-pounding by minutes -- and it seems somebody outside saw it and didn't like it.

Here's the sequence of events, per Wandhoff -- he says he was flying the flag and playing Israel's national anthem from his apartment before the huge crowd came by ... which he claims spurred police to come up to his unit and demand he stop, but he didn't.

Once the protesters rolled through, Wandhoff says he again flew the flag ... which he says then led to this man running upstairs and demanding entry. He says he then called cops to report this but alleges the police told him he was being "clearly provocative" here.

Barbra Streisand's life didn't just inspire her hits -- it apparently led to others reaping the benefits of chart success ... including Aerosmith, which rode the coattails of her pillow talk.

According to Barb's new memoir, 'My Name is Barbra,' Steven Tyler and co. have her to thank for their hugely popular single "I Don't Want to Miss a Thing" ... 'cause she says the inspiration from the song actually came from something her husband once told her in bed.

The way BS tells it ... she and her then-BF James Brolin were laying next to each other one night (sometime in the mid-'90s) not long after they'd first met/started hooking up.

She says they were staring at each other, when JB said ... "I don't want to fall asleep." She asked why and he replied, "'Cause I'll miss you.'" Barb adds ... "What a beautiful, poetic thing to say. And it captured a moment of complete bliss… physical, emotional, spiritual."

About a year after that, in 1997, Barbra says she was doing an interview with Barbara Walters on "20/20," during which she recounted that sweet moment ... something Diane Warren was also watching from home when this episode aired, so claims Barbra.

One thing led to another, and DW eventually wrote Aerosmith's first #1 hit in '98 ... which went on to be used in "Armageddon" and be nominated for an Oscar that year too.

After seeing how much success the song garnered, Barbra writes ... "It was so gratifying to see so many people responding to Jim's words. Well, no wonder… so did I!"

Kel Mitchell is finally explaining what the heck landed him in the hospital -- and it sounds like he feared the worst for a quick minute there ... with some truly scary symptoms.

The former Nickelodeon star hopped on IG and showed everybody that he's doing much better now and in good spirits -- not to mention spilling on what everyone's been wondering since he first went into the ER ... namely, WHAT HAPPENED?

According to Kel, it all started Tuesday when he was walking around and started to feel dizzy -- which he says he attributed to him possibly being dehydrated or simply low on food.

However, when parts of his body started to go numb ... that's when Kel says he started panicking and got rushed over to a hospital. KM goes on to say he couldn't lift his arm for a bit -- and that he and his loved ones suspected something terrible had happened. He doesn't say it explicitly ... but it sounds like he might've thought stroke, considering the warning signs.

Fortunately for everyone, it wasn't that ... as it turns out, Kel says an old injury flared up and that caused a bulging disc along his spine to rub up against a nerve -- and that was causing the problems he was experiencing. TMZ broke the story ... he came in conscious and alert.

Kel says they ran a battery of tests on him, which is why he had to stay overnight ... but he's out now and doing much better. The guy again thanks his fans for the well-wishes.

Brie Larson was able to do a last-minute press push to plug her new Marvel movie -- this after the SAG-AFTRA strike ended -- but not even that could salvage ticket sales.

The actress -- who plays the lead in "The Marvels" -- got the green light from Kevin Feige and co. to hit the red carpet for the debut of their latest superhero flick ... not to mention a TV spot on 'The Tonight Show' with Jimmy Fallon, which squeezed her in in the 11th hour.

Her late-night appearance went about as well as you could imagine ... she talked about the movie, the director, the studio -- everything you could want mentioned ahead of a film's release. Unfortunately, though ... that doesn't seem to have boosted interest in her project.

Per box office estimates, "The Marvels" is on pace for an awful domestic opening -- by Marvel's standards -- with experts saying it's on pace to snag between $47-$52 million.

Between Thursday previews and Friday's full slate of screenings, the movie's only raked in $21.5 million ... marking the second-lowest Marvel opening day gross behind the original 'Hulk' movie that came out way back in 2008, before Disney even snapped up the IP.

The reason this is extra ugly is the fact that the first 'Marvel' movie that starred Brie -- mind you, this is a sequel -- actually cleaned up among theater-goers ... bringing in over a billion dollars worldwide in 2019. Now, 4 years later -- not nearly the same interest.

The question ... was it the content, or lack of marketing that torpedoed "The Marvels" here? It didn't really get a chance to get much chatter on account of the actors' strike that was going on up until just a few days ago -- so it's possible folks simply didn't know about it.

Former NFL cornerback D.J. Hayden -- who was a first-round pick in the 2013 draft -- was reportedly killed in a horrific car crash in Houston that claimed six lives.

The devastating accident happened at 2 AM on Saturday according to Houston Police Department's Assistant Chief Megan Howard and it involved an Acura SUV and a Chrysler 300 that ran a red light on Fannin Street.

"It appears to be going very fast, high velocity," Chief Howard said during the press conference. "At the scene, there were a total of four individuals pronounced deceased."

Chief Howard said another four were sent to the hospital ... sadly, two of them died later.

"We have a total of five males deceased, one female deceased," Chief Howard said.

According to Joseph Duarte of the Houston Chronicle, one of the deceased is former NFL player Hayden who played for the Raiders, Lions, Jaguars, and Washington.

Prior to the NFL, Hayden played two seasons (2011, 2012) at the University of Houston ... and during his senior year, he had a near-fatal injury when the inferior vena cava in his heart was torn after a hit during practice.

He survived the incident and was drafted as the 12th overall pick in the 2013 NFL Draft.

D.J. logged 328 tackles, 4.5 sacks, 4 interceptions, and 4 forced fumbles in his nine-year career.

Another football player was also killed in the crash ... defensive back Zach McMillian who also played for the UH Cougars.

He was only 33.

Druski's constant Birdman trolling seems to have finally caught up with him -- that is, if you buy this surveillance footage ... which shows the record exec "pulling up" on the homie.

TMZ Hip Hop has obtained some pretty shocking footage ... which we're told shows the Cash Money honcho and some goons literally dropping in and violently confronting Druski and co. at a studio session that the viral star was in late Friday night here in L.A.

Check it out ... you can see Birdman and his two friends facing off with Druski in a stairwell, and things get heated quickly -- with Baby apparently even attempting to put hands on Dru.

A minor scuffle ensues, and Druski and his pals go tumbling down the stairs as they try to escape ... making a run for it and beelining it through the halls of the studio -- with Birdman in close pursuit. We're told Dru had just finished filming for his reality show, "Coulda Been House," when this happened ... and from the looks of it, Birdman caught wind of it.

It would also appear that Birdman took something with him from all this ... namely, Druski's chain -- which he proudly flashed on social media afterward, writing ... "Surprise Party B*tch Slippin In Studio Richgang." Druski hasn't addressed the incident on any of his platforms.

Of course, the question here is ... is this real or fake??? Frankly, we're not even sure -- because this "beef" between Druski and Birdman has been walking the line of fact and fiction for a while, and Birdman himself certainly seems to think they have actual problems.

It all stems from this "Coulda Been Records" venture ... which has echoes of Birdman's Cash Money Records, right down to style and design of the logo. From the jump, Baby has made clear he does not approve -- this even though Druski has explained it's all for laughs.

That apparently doesn't matter to Birdman, who has repeatedly faced off with Druski (virtually) telling him to back down ... oftentimes in a pretty threatening way ... which seems legit.

A conservative Texas-based bishop got the boot by Catholicism's top dog after constantly criticizing him as too liberal ... and after refusing to resign when asked.

Pope Francis announced Saturday that Bishop Joseph Strickland of Tyler, TX had been relieved of his pastoral governance over his area -- which effectively means he's fired. For now, PF is appointing a bishop from Austin to oversee Tyler's diocese until they find a permanent replacement.

The ousting comes a few months after Pope Francis sent some holy types to investigate Bishop Strickland and see how he was running things out there deep in the heart of Texas ... this after accusations of him teaching "doctrinally unorthodox claims" in his sermons.

Of course, the real impetus of this probably lies in the fact that Strickland has been bashing Frank for a long time now -- very vocally accusing him of twisting up the Catholic faith with his fairly progressive views on a number of social issues ... LGBTQ+ inclusion, abortion, etc.

In fact, just the other day ... Pope Francis said he was cool with transgender people getting baptized into the Catholic faith, and even signed off on them serving as godparents to Catholic kids, assuming it wouldn't lead to any "scandal" as he put it in his remarks.

Chilling video shows alleged murderer Samuel Haskell Jr. enlisting several men to remove heavy bags from his home -- bags the laborers say contained body parts, and which police suspect are the remains of Haskell's missing wife and family.

TMZ obtained this surveillance video recorded Tuesday, Nov. 7 outside Haskell's home in Tarzana, CA. The ominous scene begins at 3:54 PM, as a man in a white shirt -- who witnesses have ID'd as Haskell -- waves down a blue moving truck to stop in front of his home.

Three minutes later, 2 men are seen lugging what appears to be a large, black garbage bag down the driveway and leaving it on the pavement. Then, at 3:58 PM, 2 other men are seen loading a 2nd garbage bag into the bed of a white truck -- then they do the same with the first bag.

Haskell walks away from the group, back up his driveway, and 2 of the men get in the blue truck ... as the white truck with the bags drives away.

Haskell -- the son of former Hollywood super agent, Sam Haskell Sr. -- waits 7 minutes, and drives away in his white Tesla at 4:08 PM, heading in the opposite direction of the truck.

The laborers have told NBC4 in L.A. they only got a block away before they decided something was not right. They say Haskell hired them to move 3 bags he said were filled with rocks, but the men found them to be soft and soggy. So, they pulled over to look inside, and discovered human body parts in one bag ... including a belly button.

That's where the surveillance video picks up ... at 4:15 PM the white truck is back in front of Haskell's house, because the men say they returned the bags and Haskell's money.

You can see Haskell meet them in the driveway ... hands are extended, and it does seem like money is exchanged. The laborers say they left all 3 bags with Haskell, and at 4:17 PM, the truck pulls away again.

Finally, at 4:22 PM ... Haskell drives off again in his Tesla, but what he didn't know is that the laborers went straight to police to report what they'd seen.

As we reported, Haskell was arrested in the evening of Wednesday, Nov. 8 ... after a homeless person discovered a dismembered body earlier that day, stuffed in a bag and left in a dumpster. The dumpster is a little more than 6 miles away from Haskell's home.

Additionally, TMZ has learned police -- after hearing what the laborers reported -- went to the neighborhood Tuesday night to interview some of Haskell's neighbors, and asked if they'd seen any garbage bags left in his driveway.

Haskell's wife, Mei Haskell, and her parents are both missing ... and, although police haven't identified the remains yet, the operating theory is they're the remains of Mei and/or her parents.

Police say they've found blood at the Haskell home, and evidence that leads them to believe there was a murder committed there.

Haskell Jr.'s father was once one of Hollywood's biggest power players -- repping celebs like George Clooney, Dolly Parton, Ray Romano, Kirstie Alley and Tony Danza. He's now president of Magnolia Hill Productions, which has produced several of Dolly's Christmas specials and TV movies.

It's unclear if police have seen the surveillance video yet -- but, obviously, it will be a major piece of evidence.

Taylor Swift teamed up with her NFL beau Travis Kelce for an intimate dinner in Argentina -- and the lovebirds couldn't stop holding hands, proving they have an ironclad relationship.

The pop singer and the Kansas City Chiefs tight end were filmed together at Elena restaurant in the Four Seasons Hotel Buenos Aires Friday evening.

Check out the video ... after their meal, the two -- surrounded by security -- stroll across the room, passing by staff and patrons trying to catch a glimpse of the world's most famous couple. During the 20-second clip, Taylor and Travis are clearly gripping each other's hands as they make their way out the door.

Earlier in the day ... Travis hopped on a plane for a 13-hour flight to watch Taylor perform in Buenos Aires Friday night, but the show got canceled due to torrential rain.

Travis also missed Taylor's Thursday concert in the capital city because he attended a charity event thrown by his teammate, Patrick Mahomes, in Kansas City. At the gala, Travis was pictured standing at a table and clapping his hands, while appearing happy.

The question -- how much time will Travis spend on the road, given that Taylor will be performing the international portion of her Eras Tour for a long, long time.

Travis sure has a lot to smile about these days ... not only is he dating Taylor, but he's a 2023 Super Bowl champion.

New Orleans Saints wide receiver Michael Thomas spent his Friday night in jail after he was arrested for allegedly getting into a violent, brick-throwing altercation with a construction worker.

Law enforcement sources tell TMZ ... Thomas was taken into custody by Kenner PD in Louisiana and booked for simple battery and criminal mischief -- both misdemeanors. He then cooled his heels in a jail cell for a few hours before he was released around 10 PM.

According to cops ... Thomas got into a shouting match with the hardhat, who was helping to build a home in the same neighborhood where the NFL player lives.

Police say Thomas started making threats because he was pissed the guy parked a truck in front of his house.

Using a cell phone, the worker began recording Thomas, who became irate and scooped up a brick, throwing it at the man's truck and damaging the windshield, cops said.

Thomas then allegedly got up in the man's face and smacked the phone out of his hand. Police say Thomas also pushed the man and demanded that he stop filming the incident.

The victim notified police and filed a report, accusing Thomas of the misdemeanors. Thomas was apprehended without incident and has been cooperating with the investigation.

The commercial airline pilot charged with nearly killing dozens of passengers is speaking out for first time, believing he could have snapped out of his terrifying hallucinogenic state if he destroyed the plane.

Joseph Emerson was interviewed Friday by the New York Times in Portland's Multnomah County Jail, telling a reporter, “I thought it would stop both engines, the plane would start to head towards a crash, and I would wake up."

Emerson was arrested for the bizarre October 22 incident aboard a flight from Washington state to San Francisco. He was charged with 83 counts of attempted murder -- one for each passenger -- and is currently being held without bond.

He told The Times his nightmare began two days earlier when he consumed magic mushrooms with friends while reminiscing about another buddy who had passed away in 2018.

He said the death had a traumatic impact on his life, falling into a deep funk and seeking out therapists to cope with the loss.

Fast forward to Oct. 22. Emerson said he was continuing to self-medicate and ingest the 'shrooms with his friends, who he thought were mocking him and scheming to harm him.

He said feelings of fear and dread washed over him on his way to the airport, boarding the one-hour flight to San Francisco as a passenger -- not a pilot -- since he was off duty at the time.

Before the doors closed on the plane, Emerson said he texted a friend, claiming he was having a panic attack.

After the flight took off, Emerson said he went completely nuts, screaming, "I'm not OK," before activating the plane's two fire-suppression handles.

According to a police report, the pilots flying the plane grabbed Emerson's wrists and ripped him away from the control panel so he couldn't cut the fuel supply or shut down the engines.

The report says Emerson then yelled, “You need to cuff me right now, or it’s going to be bad!" He also allegedly guzzled coffee from a pot, tried to open the emergency door and demanded to know if all this was real.

It certainly was because Emerson was arrested after the plane made an emergency landing. To top everything off, Emerson allegedly took off his clothes, attempted to dive out a window, peed on himself and masturbated.

Bill Maher launched on public schools Friday night, and it's hard to argue with the premise ... public schools are failing -- failing students AND teachers -- and maybe the "old" way of running schools should be revisited.

The 'Real Time' host laid out the problem with some pretty graphic video ... and it's hard to argue that the inmates are not running the asylum. Video after video shows teachers being beaten, kicked and attacked in various other ways. One in 7 teachers has been the victim of some form of physical violence at the hands of their students.

BM blames a lot of that on parents, who used to have teachers' backs ... now their kids can do no wrong.

On a hilarious note, Bill notes 20 years ago kids looked like Britney Spears in that famous music video. Today, they look more like Brit dancing with knives.

And speaking of celebs, Maher is incredulous people like LeBron, George Clooney, Kanye and others have opened their own schools ... as in why does that make the school attractive to parents?