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Mark Cuban says he's already begun firing and suspending Dallas Mavericks front office employees over a Sports Illustrated article that paints the company as a nightmare place for female employees.

The article came out late Tuesday and contains quotes from several current and former female employees who say they experienced sexual harassment and "predatory sexual behavior" while working with the Mavs.

Among the allegations in the article ... former Mavericks president and CEO Terdema Ussery allegedly told one female employee, "You're going to get gang-banged, aren't you?"

When the woman told Ussery she was actually going to the movies with friends he replied, "No, you're definitely getting gang-banged." Terdema has denied the allegations.

Another claim from the article ... a former Mavs website writer committed multiple acts of domestic assault, including against a female employee he was dating.

Both employees -- Ussery and the writer are no longer with the team.

Cuban has essentially said he didn't know about the alleged incidents -- claiming he would speak with his head of human resources and was assured he didn't have a problem in the Mavs organization.

When he learned of the incidents via the Sports Illustrated reporters, Cuban says he immediately took action -- hiring an independent law firm to investigate and a 3rd party company to handle harassment complaints.

Cuban says he's also fired his head of H.R.

"I want to deal with this issue," Cuban told SI ... adding, "There's a problem in the Mavericks organization and we've got to fix it."

Chris Cornell's wife, Vicky Karayiannis, blames her late husband's doctor for his suicide, saying the MD never should have prescribed a drug to relieve pain.

Vicky appeared on 'GMA' Wednesday and told Robin Roberts Chris was suffering from a shoulder injury and his doctor prescribed a benzodiazepine for relief. She says he was a recovering addict and should never have been given such a drug without close supervision.

Vicky says Chris began abusing the drug which then led to a relapse.

TMZ broke the story ... Chris hanged himself in a Detroit hotel room last May shortly after a Soundgarden concert. The Medical Examiner said he had a variety of drugs in his system, including a sedative, barbiturates and Ativan.

Vicky says Chris would never have killed himself in a sober state ... she says he loved life.

"Teen Mom 2" cast member David Eason's officially been given the boot from the hit show ... TMZ has learned.

Jenelle Evans' husband came under fire for an anti-LGBTQ rant online Monday, and now MTV has severed ties. According to a network spokesperson ... Eason's comments do not reflect its views, and "with six weeks left of production ... effective immediately, we are ending our relationship with him."

Evans' co-star Kailyn Lowry told TMZ earlier Tuesday that she was disgusted and disappointed by Eason's comments ... and believed he should be kicked off the show.

In her husband's defense, Jenelle said she and David have gay friends and insisted he doesn't hate the LGBTQ community. She also apologized.

Tavis Smiley says PBS firing him wasn't just about sexual harassment allegations ... he now claims it was racial, and it's costing him millions upon millions of dollars.

Smiley filed a lawsuit against his former network -- which aired his talk show for 14 years -- claiming the sexual harassment allegations against him were "trumped up." Immediately after Smiley was suspended in mid December, he admitted to having relationships with coworkers ... but insisted they were all consensual. He was fired later that month.

In his lawsuit, first reported by the Washington Post, Smiley says there was racial tension at PBS. He claims network honchos "hassled Mr. Smiley when he had African American guests who espoused controversial positions, and effectively tried to stop any such guests from appearing."

Smiley also says in the docs ... his personal production company has been hemorrhaging "multiple millions of dollars" since he got fired, and he's been forced to lay off roughly 20 employees.

PBS calls Smiley's lawsuit a "meritless" attempt to distract the public from his "pattern of sexual misconduct." Jennifer Rankin Byrne, Communications VP for PBS, also reiterated an independent law firm's investigation found Smiley had "multiple sexual encounters with subordinates over many years."

Bill Belichick didn't win the Super Bowl -- but he's winning at life.

Here's Bill's long-term girlfriend, Linda Holliday, stuntin' in a fishnet 1-piece somewhere a hell of a lot warmer than New England ... and lookin' damn good.

No sign of Bill -- guessing he's behind the camera in a hoodie.

It's the second beach pic Linda's shared since the Super Bowl ... but play time's over for her Coach Belichick, 'cause she also mentioned they just got back to Boston.

Sure Bill's stoked to get back to work -- though we bet he prefers hangin' with a half-naked Linda.

By the way, Bill and Linda reportedly met back in 2007 and began dating shortly after that. Since they've been together, the Patriots have been to 5 Super Bowls and won 2 of 'em.

President Trump's doing something about gun control -- he says he's signed paperwork directing Jeff Sessions to get the ball rolling on banning "all devices that turn legal weapons into machine guns."

Trump says this process actually started after the Las Vegas massacre in October, when he told the Attorney General to look into whether the bump stocks used by Stephen Paddock were illegal under current law.

The Prez must have been encouraged by what Sessions reported back, because now -- in the wake of the Florida school shooting by Nikolas Cruz that left 17 people dead -- he's made a big move to propose regulations almost all gun control advocates support.

It's unclear what Sessions will do from here, but steps are clearly being taken to address the gun crisis.

However, don't count on the Florida State House to follow suit. Around the same time Trump made his announcement, state legislators voted down a measure to hear a bill banning assault rifles 71-36.

Serena Williams says she "almost died" after giving birth to her daughter, Alexis Olympia -- if not for a team of super doctors who removed a large hematoma from her abdomen.

The tennis star says her daughter was born by an emergency C-section on Sept. 1 after Olympia's heart rate plummeted during contractions.

The surgery went smoothly, Serena said on CNN.com ... "But what followed just 24 hours after giving birth were six days of uncertainty."

Williams says she suffered a pulmonary embolism -- which is when a blood clot blocks one or more arteries in her lungs.

Serena contacted medical professionals -- but the coughing from the embolism got so bad, her C-section wound popped open and she required another surgery.

"The doctors found a large hematoma, a swelling of clotted blood, in my abdomen. And then I returned to the operating room for a procedure that prevents clots from traveling to my lungs."

Serena eventually made it home and was ordered to spend the next 6 weeks in bed.

She credits the "incredible medical team of doctors and nurses at a hospital with state-of-the-art equipment" -- and urges people to support UNICEF, which provides medical services to mothers and babies around the world.

The University of Louisville is being forced to vacate all basketball wins from the 2011-12 season through the 2014-15 season -- including their 2013 National Championship ... and it's all over the sex party scandal.

An NCAA investigation found "a former Louisville director of basketball operations acted unethically when he committed serious violations by arranging striptease dances and sex acts for prospects, student-athletes and others, and did not cooperate with the investigation."

The punishment was initially handed down in June 2017 -- but Louisville appealed. Now, the NCAA is upholding the ruling ... which means the banner is coming down.

As we previously reported, the allegations made headlines back in 2015 when self-described madam Katina Powell claimed U of L staff paid her more than $10,000 for dances and sex services from her stable of escorts.

In her book, Powell singles out ex-Louisville staffer Andre McGee -- a graduate assistant who became director of basketball operations -- claiming he was the point man who paid Powell.

Powell claims her stable of dancers included her own daughters -- and they would perform for Louisville players at various off-campus locations from 2010 to 2014.

After the dances, Powell claims she would negotiate a separate fee for the players to have sex with the women.

Milo Yiannopoulos' $10 million lawsuit against Simon & Schuster is over and done ... and the publishing giant says it isn't paying him a dime.

TMZ broke the story ... Milo sued his former publisher claiming they caved from mounting pressure -- from all kinds of celebs -- to put the kibosh on his book deal after allegations surfaced he condoned pedophilia.

Milo's lawsuit claimed Simon & Schuster was set to publish his book, "Dangerous," but got cold feet when stars like Sarah Silverman and Leslie Jones put Milo's publishers on blast for helping Milo spread hate speech.

Now both sides have filed to dismiss the lawsuit, and Milo can't refile it either. Usually that means there was some sort of settlement paid, but Simon & Schuster says "We are pleased that Mr. Yiannopoulos’ lawsuit has been withdrawn, with prejudice, and with no payment. We stand by our decision to terminate the publication of Mr. Yiannopoulos’ book."

The only upshot for Milo is his $80,000 advance for the book. He tells us he got to keep that, and brags he's made more than $1 million from publishing the book on his own. He says he didn't want to blow that money on lawyers ... and that's why he walked away from the lawsuit.

Charlotte Hornets rookie Malik Monk -- the 11th overall pick in the draft -- was involved in a car accident early Sunday morning ... and was cited by cops for careless driving.

According to police documents obtained by TMZ Sports, Monk was driving near the University of Arkansas around 5:46 AM when his red 2002 Lexus ran off the road and crashed into a gate.

University police responded and cited the 20-year-old for careless driving and no proof of insurance.

The car was pretty jacked up and was towed to a nearby impound lot. Monk was allowed to retrieve his personal items which included money, basketballs, shoes and jerseys.

Monk told police, "I was driving, looked down for a second then I just hit a bump. Happened fast."

No word if he was injured in the wreck. The Hornets don't play until Thursday.

Guess co-founder Paul Marciano is giving up his day-to-day responsibilities as a key executive of his fashion company while it completes a misconduct investigation.

Guess Inc. made the announcement Tuesday, which comes nearly two weeks after Kate Upton detailed allegations of sexual harassment against Marciano.

As we reported ... she claims he groped her breasts and thighs, forcibly kissed her, fired her from shoots and called her a "fat pig" in 2011. He's denied her allegations.

Shortly after coming out with her full story, Kate told us Guess needs to clean house if they really wanted to deal with their issues with women ... suggesting it was a company-wide problem that came from the top down.

As for this latest news ... Guess says Marciano will not be getting paid while he steps aside. He serves as the executive chairman of the co. board as well as its chief creative officer.

Odell Beckham Jr. came out FIRING on his NBA bros from courtside at the All-Star game -- from James Harden to Russell Westbrook to Victor Oladipo -- and it was pretty damn hilarious.

To Dipo: "Little Foot! I seen you on 'Land Before Time' before!"

To Russ: "You like a human turtle man -- Donatello."

To Harden: "Beard man -- yeah, you ... is that thing attached to you or is it real?

To Team Steph (when they threw away the game): "YEEEEESSSSS!!!"

Odell also might've poked fun at Kyrie Irving's infamous flat-earth theory ... enlisting the help of Dave Chappelle to joke about the moon not being real.

But his best burn might've been on "Black Panther" star Chadwick Boseman (yeah, celebs weren't safe either).

Here's UFC killer Cat Zingano SLAYING a black spaghetti string bikini -- proving she's coming back to the cage jacked and ready to rock at UFC 222.

"Strong. Motivated. Focused. Mean. Ready," Zingano captioned the photo ... a selfie with inspirational messages scribbled across her mirror.

But this ain't just any mirror selfie -- it speaks volumes for Cat, a single mom who lost her husband to suicide in 2014. Since then, she's struggled with staying in shape and finding the motivation to fight.

Now, after nearly 20 months off, it's pretty clear she's ready to get after it again.

Captain LeBron won MVP at the All-Star game ... but his offspring were the ones rockin' garments fit for a King.

LeBron snapped a pic with his 3 kids after downing Team Steph -- and they were all fitted in super expensive gear from Gucci, one of his favorite designer brands.

The lineup ...

13-year-old Bronny: $1,100 Gucci logo sweater

10-year-old Bryce: $1,390 Gucci teddy bear sweater

3-year-old: Zhuri: $410 Gucci princetown slipper-shoes and $365 Gucci tiger hoodie

That's right -- a toddler was wearing more expensive clothes than you yesterday.

FYI, papa James' footwear of choice was his brand new Chapter 2 Kith x Nike LeBron 15 "Long Live the King" joints -- which retail for $285.

Jeremy Lin is going to bat for J.J. Redick after he was caught on video using a Chinese slur ... saying he's 100% convinced J.J. didn't say mean to use the anti-Asian C-word in a hateful way.

Redick dropped the slur in a commercial for NBA China that was released over the weekend -- clearly saying, "I wish all of the NBA ch**k fans of China a very happy Chinese New Year."

The whole thing was puzzling -- leaving many wondering why the hell J.J. would use that word in that context.

But Jeremy -- the NBA's first full Chinese/Taiwanese-American player -- says he spoke at length with J.J. over the phone, and "I truly believe he didn’t say a racial slur and that he has a great deal of respect towards Chinese people."

Lin acknowledges the word should NEVER be used, but says all the "hateful language" J.J.'s getting from fans needs to stop since it was an accident.

Redick released a lengthy apology on social media Sunday night, saying -- "I ask your forgiveness ... I am so sorry for upsetting anyone."

"I was intending to say 'NBA Chinese fans' but it sounded weird in my mind so I changed it mid-sentence to 'NBA fans in China.' It came out the wrong way."

"That is not a word in my vocabulary but I now understand how it sounds on the video."

Survivors of the mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School last week are crying out for something to be done about it ... and thousands have gathered in support.

Emma Gonzalez, a senior at the Parkland, FL school, gave a passionate speech at the federal courthouse in Fort Lauderdale Saturday ... calling out for gun control in the wake of the massacre by Nikolas Cruz that left 17 people dead.

Emma blasted the treatment of her fellow students following the shooting, statements by President Trump and other politicians, and the NRA ... before leading chants of "We call BS!" Check out her full speech below.

Meanwhile in Miami -- less than 50 miles away from the site of the school shooting -- one of the region's largest gun shows is also going down. More than 140 vendors were reportedly at the Miami Gun Show Saturday morning, selling a variety of weapons ... including AR-15s.

As we reported ... Cruz used an AR-15 bought from a local gun shop to carry out his attack.