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Laura Dern is joining the cast of "The White Lotus" ... a major development that took very little time to happen after Helena Bonham Carter's abrupt departure last week.

A source with knowledge tells TMZ ... Dern is not playing the same character as Helena ... that role has been scrapped -- and a new one is being crafted amid production.

As we reported ... Helena left the show all of a sudden .... with filming starting about a week ago in France.

Justin Baldoni's lawyers say he and the other defendants in Blake Lively's lawsuit can't be held responsible for her businesses going belly up ... because she's not a marvelous mogul.

The two sides were in court Tuesday to discuss pretrial issues ... and, damages came up --specifically, Lively arguing Baldoni and others damaged her public reputation, which caused her brands to take a beating.

Baldoni's lawyers disagreed, firing back that Blake has a poor track record of running businesses ... and companies like her liquor brand Betty Buzz failed because people just don't like her.

It seems Brendan Carr was not amused by Jimmy Kimmel's "light roast joke" about Melania Trump last week ... because he's reportedly about to order Disney-owned TV stations to re-up their broadcasting licenses early.

A source with knowledge of the matter tells NBC News the FCC chairman is set to issue the directive Tuesday ... which will force Disney's 8 stations to file their renewals two years ahead of schedule -- noting they weren't due until 2028 at the earliest.

The insider says the "unprecedented" order is sparked by the Melania joke Jimmy made during his show last week.

ICYMI ... Jimmy aired a mock White House Correspondents' Dinner roast on Thursday, 2 days before the actual event -- since this year's dinner did not have a comedian host, as is tradition -- when he said Melania "had the glow of an expectant widow."

Eureka -- a drag performer best known for competing on Seasons 9 and 10 of "RuPaul's Drag Race" -- says she didn't feel so free at Madonna's album teaser event over the weekend ... because she says she got the boot for no reason.

The reality star aired her grievances on social media ... saying she was forcefully removed from the event for Madonna's new album "Confessions On A Dance Floor: Part II."

Eureka claims she was "treated like trash at the door" of The Abbey -- the famous West Hollywood club where the teaser event took place.

Diddy is drawing a hard line against Jonathan Hay's explosive lawsuit ... filing a response in court that basically says the publicist's shocking allegations are flat-out false.

The music mogul just filed his official answer to Hay's amended complaint -- and he starts by "generally and specifically" denying every single allegation in the lawsuit. He also denies Hay was harmed at all and says Hay isn't entitled to a dime.

That's a major response to a lawsuit packed with jaw-dropping accusations.

Barry Keoghan is finally setting the record straight on those Sabrina Carpenter cheating rumors ... and he says the whole thing was bogus.

The actor popped up on the latest episode of Benny Blanco's "Friends Keep Secrets" podcast alongside Lil Dicky and Kristin Batalucco ... where he opened up about why he pulled back from social media and public appearances amid speculation he was unfaithful to Sabrina.

Barry says he completely stepped away from Instagram, social events, and even hanging out in the public eye because he felt buried under a narrative he says wasn't true.

Don't you just hate when you show up to an event wearing the same outfit as someone else ... and that person turns out to be the Queen Consort of the United Kingdom? That's the exact situation First Lady Melania Trump found herself in with Queen Camilla and King Charles visited the White House Tuesday.

Check it out ... the two most powerful ladies in the house wore all-white outfits with huge hats to keep the sun out of their eyes -- and the ensembles are so similar ya gotta wonder how their respective teams didn't coordinate on this.

Dianna Russini tried to help Mike Vrabel get over a four-game losing streak with a mediocre Spotify playlist ... at least that's what the internet believes after the NFL insider's streaming activity surfaced on Monday.

David Covucci of FOIAball brought the wild development to light on Monday ... posting screenshots of an account belonging to the former Athletic reporter, which featured a collection of songs titled "TURNIN THE PAGE."

It was shared with a user named simply "Mike" on December 19, 2022 ... the day after Vrabel's Tennessee Titans lost their fourth-straight contest that season.

A Trump official decided the truce over nasty rhetoric is officially over, because he came out swinging Tuesday, calling Jimmy Kimmel a "s*** human being."

White House Communications Director Steven Cheung ferociously reacted to Kimmel's comments Monday night, not just for defending his joke about the First Lady, but also for attacking Donald Trump over his rhetoric.

Cheung's response was two-fold:

It seems like Donald Trump and King Charles III are more than just allies ... they're reportedly (very distant) cousins.

According to "detailed research" from Daily Mail, Trump and Charles are 15th cousins ... because they share a common ancestor from the late 1400s/early 1500s.

The UK paper reports that their family trees overlap thanks to John Stuart, the 3rd Earl of Lennox and great-grandson of Scotland's King James II.

It turns out John had a son named Matthew, whose own son went on to become the second husband of Mary, Queen of Scots.

Red Coats have taken over the White House lawn ... a crazy visual, especially considering we're coming up on the 250th anniversary of U.S. independence from England.

King Charles III and Queen Camila arrived at the White House Monday ... standing side-by-side with Donald Trump and Melania.

Jimmy Kimmel is firing back at President Donald Trump and First Lady Melania Trump after they called on him to be fired over a controversial joke.

The late night host clapped back Monday night, opening his monologue with a jab ... joking sometimes you wake up and "the First Lady puts out a statement demanding you be fired" ... adding, yeah, we've all been there.

He made it crystal clear he wasn't calling for violence, insisting the bit was just a "pretend roast" ... clearly a dig at the couple's age gap, not anything darker. Kimmel doubled down that it was a "very light roast joke" about Trump nearing 80 and Melania being significantly younger.

An actor who appeared in the Oscar-winning film "Dances With Wolves" has been sentenced to 37 years to life in prison for sexually assaulting Indigenous women and girls over a period of 2 decades.

A Las Vegas jury found Nathan Chasing Horse guilty of 13 of 21 charges he faced in January following an 11-day trial on Friday. He was originally arrested for the crimes by a SWAT team in 2023 and was booked in the Clark County Jail for child abuse or neglect, sex assault, sex assault against a child and sex trafficking of an adult.

Chasing Horse was accused of using his influence in the Native American community to take advantage of his victims. He was convicted of 10 counts of sexual assault of a minor under 16, 1 count of open/gross lewdness, 1 count of sexual assault, and 1 count of possession of visual presentation depicting sexual conduct of a child, local outlet KTNV reported.

Kirsten Storms' ex-husband Brandon Barash claims the soap star is exhibiting concerning behavior and he fears for their daughter's well-being, and now a judge agrees she is suffering from a mental health crisis ... TMZ has learned.

According to court docs obtained by TMZ, Brandon pleaded for an emergency restraining order against Kirsten, and got it approved.

Brandon -- who also starred on "General Hospital" -- said following their divorce, they moved separately to Tennessee. He said Kirsten's landlord sued her for eviction, and "instability with housing has been a recurring theme" for his ex.

Channing Tatum is seemingly in his feels after his ex-fiancée, Zoë Kravitz, got engaged to Harry Styles ... and, he's venting it just like all the regular folks out there ... with cryptic social media posts!

The actor took to social media a few days after news about Styles and Kravitz's upcoming nuptials broke online ... sharing a poem which reads, in part, "My brain and heart divorced / a decade ago / about who was to blame about how big of a mess I have become / Eventually, they couldn't be in the same room together."

Fans online are obviously reading into the lyrics ... claiming they're all about his famous ex ... they split in late 2024 after about three years of dating.

We all know Taylor Swift adores her fans ... but she did admit when she feels a bit weirded out by them ... when they act like her songs are paternity tests!

The pop superstar shared the tidbit during an interview with The New York Times, published Tuesday, about her songwriting. During the discussion, she addressed the "corners" of her fanbase who "take things to a really extreme place" as they try to assign her songs to a real-life person.

She explained ... "When it gets a little bit weird for me is when people act like it's sort of a paternity test, like, 'This song's about that person.' Because I'm like, 'That dude didn't write the song, I did.'"