Controversial S#!T

The NFL Network is responding to Heath Evans -- who claims he should NOT have lost his job for sending sexual pics to a wardrobe lady because she sent sexy pictures back.

But, the NFL Network ain't buyin' what Heath's sellin' -- essentially saying the fact it was mutual doesn't mean it wasn't "misconduct" in the first place.

"Heath’s employment was terminated as a result of his own misconduct – which he freely admitted to on Twitter today," network spokesperson Alex Riethmiller tells TMZ Sports.

"Before severing its relationship with Heath, the NFL carefully considered all of the circumstances, including the information that Heath provided. In the end, the NFL concluded that his conduct was not acceptable in our workplace and we stand by our decision to terminate his employment."

Heath Evans is adamant he did NOT sexually harass a wardrobe specialist at NFL Network -- claiming they exchanged MUTUAL sexual text messages ... but he was fired anyway.

Evans was named in a 2017 lawsuit filed by Jami Cantor who claims she was sexually terrorized by several ex-NFL stars working at the Network ... including Marshall Faulk, Warren Sapp, Donovan McNabb and others.

In her suit, Cantor claimed Evans sent her nude pics on at least 2 occasions -- but now, Evans says it was definitely a 2-way street.

"My accuser and I had exchanged mutual flirtations that included her sending me and me sending her pictures of a sexual nature," Evans wrote in a statement.

"I regret having engaged in the picture exchange. Nothing ever came of the mutual flirtations and we remained friends during and after her employment ended at the network."

Evans says he has text messages that prove his story.

But, despite his apparent evidence, Evans says the NFL Network pressured him to sign a non-disclosure agreement about the case ... which would bar him from telling his side of the story publicly.

Evans says he refused -- so the NFL Network fired him on July 27. Now, he's sounding off on social media.

Still, Evans says he has no hard feelings towards Cantor -- "While I certainly wish she hadn't falsely included me in the series of allegations she made, I understand better than most that people who have been mistreated and hurt, often hurt other people."

Jerry Jones is praising the hell out of his QB, Dak Prescott, for the way he's handling the drama surrounding the national anthem controversy ... telling TMZ Sports, "I'm so proud of him."

Jerry was leaving Mr Chow in Beverly Hills on Wednesday night when we asked if he expected Dak to get a lot of blowback for supporting Jerry's "My players will stand" position on the anthem.

"I'm so proud of him, just proud of him the way he leads the team ... for not letting it mess with their practices."

We also asked JJ how he felt about Ice Cube standing up for Dak's right to voice his opinion -- and Jerry showed love for Cube as well ... saying, "I'm a fan of Ice Cube!"

Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie are at war in their divorce case, but the more immediate struggle is the co-parenting situation that even has a judge issuing a warning to cool it ... or else.

We're told Brad has been spending the bulk of his Summer in England -- where Angelina and the kids live -- so he can see his 6 children. The judge in the divorce case set out a schedule for Brad to visit with his children in London beginning in mid-June for 10 hours a day. The visitation increased last month to 4 consecutive days at a time.

Our sources say Brad and Angelina never interact with each other, and the handoffs are always through nannies and assistants.

It's clear there have been issues over Brad interacting with the kids. The judge in the divorce case already issued an order saying Angelina tried to restrict Brad's access that the judge believed was "harmful" to the children. The judge even said Brad had a right to call and text the kids whenever he wanted, and Angelina could not monitor the contacts.

TMZ broke the stories about Angelina claiming Brad has only provided minimal child support, and Brad fired back in legal docs that he's paid her $1.3 mil in child support since they split nearly 2 years ago ... and he loaned her $8 million to buy a house.

From what we're told, things are getting worse, not better, between the two.

"Black Panther" actor Denzel Whitaker isn't the least bit shocked white R&B singers are thriving more than their black counterparts -- 'cause Elvis Presley and Chuck Berry.

We got Denzel leaving Chateau Marmont Wednesday night, and got his take on Eric Benet's theory ... that black R&B singers aren't getting the same shine.

It immediately reminded Denzel of Berry's situation. He thinks the record biz took the easiest route to the most dollars -- aka capitalism -- and that's the only reason Chuck isn't The King.

Angelina Jolie is continuing her campaign to smear Brad Pitt by alleging he stiffed her on child support ... so claim sources who say Brad has coughed up millions of dollars for the kids since the couple split.

Sources familiar with the situation tell TMZ, he and Angelina did have an informal agreement -- as she claimed in the docs she filed Tuesday -- but he has given her "way, way more" than the amount he agreed to pay ... we're told the total is in the millions of dollars.

Angelina claims in her legal docs, since their split nearly 2 years ago, Brad has not paid "meaningful child support." Our sources call that "a joke," and the proof will surface.

TMZ broke the story ... Angelina's lawyer, Laura Wasser, is quitting the case because Angelina has become so vengeful it's been impossible to represent her. Two new lawyers have joined the case ... presumably so Wasser can make an easy exit.

'Bachelorette' contestant Leo Dottavio is under investigation for sexual harassment, and his job as a stuntman at Universal Studios might hang in the balance ... TMZ has learned.

Sources familiar with the situation tell TMZ ... a complaint with human resources was filed Friday by someone who claims to have witnessed Leo making several women uncomfortable on the set with excessive hugging and unwanted flirting.

The complaint also mentions Leo sliding into the women's DMs and making them uncomfortable with the conversation.

We're told the person who filed the complaint says the alleged behavior went down at the end of 2017 when Leo worked on the "Water World" show ... but before he was cast on 'Bachelorette.'

He'd been working on "Water World" for 3 and a half years, but he was taken off the schedule in response to the initial allegations made by a former 'Bachelor' contestant ... who publicly accused him of sexually harassing women more than a decade ago. Leo denied those claims.

We've reached out to Leo who tells us he's unaware of the more recent allegations.

We reached out to Universal and a spokesperson tells TMZ, "We are aware of the situation and have taken appropriate actions" ... referring to the suspension.

L.A. Mayor Eric Garcetti had bigger things on his mind than removing Donald Trump's star from the Hollywood Walk of Fame ... but 2 things became clear -- he's not a fan of the star and he's running for President!

We got hizzoner Tuesday in the Silverlake area of L.A., and he tried deflecting our question about removing the star, talking instead about the need to blunt Trump's agenda by turning the House of Reps Democrat.

Garcetti finally weighed in and said the star should stay -- with an asterisk.

Diane Warren says we've taken enough crap from Donald Trump, so it's only fair to s**t on him.

We got the songwriting legend in WeHo Tuesday night at Craig's and asked her about the proposal to remove Trump's star from the Hollywood Walk of Fame. Warren's out-of-the-box response ... "I think someone should take a s**t on it!"

Diane -- one of the most successful songwriters in the world with 9 Oscar nominations -- goes even further with her potty talk.

Backstreet Boys singer Nick Carter is the target of a fame seeker ... so says Brian Littrell who claims the rape allegations levied against his bandmate are garbage.

We got Brian out at LAX Tuesday and wondered what would happen to the band should Nick get slapped with rape charges. TMZ broke the story ... the case now rests in the hands of the L.A. County D.A.

As we first reported ... Nick's accused of raping Dream singer Melissa Schuman in 2002, but she only filed a police report 7 months ago.

Fresh off his shot at rappers, Eric Benet says black R&B artists are getting shaded ... by white singers and the music biz, in general, and he calls it a clear case of history repeating itself.

The singer was on Van Lathan's 'The Red Pill' podcast when he broke down the current state of his genre. Eric says R&B's still a big draw, but mostly when the songs don't come from black singers.

While Sam Smith and Adele get the "genius" label, Eric says established black singers, like Kenny Lattimore, don't get nearly as much attention. He says it's the same crap that's been going on since Elvis got more shine than his black peers.

Benet's full of hot takes -- he just ripped some hip-hop artists for promoting white supremacy through their lyrics. Fat Joe's already fired back on that one. Maybe Adele wants next?

Check out the full episode with Eric below, and catch 'The Red Pill' weekly on SoundCloud.

Richie Incognito says Minnesota Vikings coach Mike Zimmer is straight-up lying about the NFL lineman's claim that he was talking with the team about a job this offseason ... and it's getting nasty.

It all started when Richie appeared on "TMZ Sports" last week and he told us he'd been speaking with multiple teams about a possible contract ... including Minnesota.

"I'm still in great shape, just waiting on that call. I've had calls from Minnesota, Seattle ... I really just don't want to go to training camp, so we'll see."

Zimmer was asked about Incognito's comments during a press conference on Tuesday -- and straight-up said Incognito was wrong.

"No interest and totally false," Zimmer said ... "Tweet that."

Incognito -- needless to say -- was furious over Zimmer's comments and tweeted, "Mike Zimmer is a F**KING LIAR!!"

Incognito claims he had been talking with Vikings line coach Tony Sparano all summer long and posted screen shots of text conversations. Sparano passed away a few weeks ago.

The screenshots show Incognito was interested in a job -- but they don't show Tony ever made a direct offer. Incognito claims they "spoke weekly this off-season" and believes Tony was seriously interested.

Jeffrey Toobin thinks it's awfully peculiar President Trump seems to have a habit of viciously attacking black people ... but stops short of calling him a full-on racist.

We got CNN's Chief Legal Analyst Monday at LAX and asked about DT's latest vitriol against prominent African-Americans -- namely, his disgusting tweet calling LeBron James and Don Lemon dumb and dumber -- and Toobin thinks there's a pattern here that can't be ignored.

Bottom line ... Trump has a track record of going after blacks both on Twitter and at rallies. He's called out LaVar Ball as being a "poor man's version of Don King" and has constantly referred to Rep. Maxine Waters as a "low IQ" person. And, don't forget the NFL's SOBs.

Toobin doesn't want to get into name-calling -- unlike the Prez -- but says 45's barbs reek of racism.

He also praises his coworker's eloquent response to Trump after getting attacked this weekend.

EA Sports has fixed the Colin Kaepernick "mistake" -- removing the edit that scrubbed the QB's name from a song that's on the soundtrack for the Madden NFL 19 video game.

As we previously reported, Colin's name is a part of the original lyrics for YG's track, "Big Bank" -- which is featured in the game. But, on the version released on Madden, Kaep's name was mysteriously absent.

EA Sports claimed they made "an unfortunate mistake" when "members of our team misunderstood the fact that while we don’t have rights to include Colin Kaepernick in the game, this doesn’t affect soundtracks."

EA added, "We messed up, and the edit should never have happened. We will make it right, with an update to Madden NFL 19 on August 6 that will include the reference again."

Turns out, EA kept their word on that -- and now, Colin's name can be heard on the song in the game.

Becca Kufrin just eliminated Blake Horstmann on the finale of '"The Bachelorette" -- which means Garrett Yrigoyen won her heart ... and our photos were spot-on!

The 'Bachelorette' star sent Blake packing on Monday's finale episode, and it's something we saw coming for a long time now. As you'll recall ... TMZ obtained photos of Becca making out with a dude in what appeared to be a big scene for her season.

We weren't quite familiar with her suitors at that point, but it's pretty obvious now this was Garrett all along. This fella's a dead ringer for the controversial contestant.

Speaking of that controversy ... it's unclear if Becca was aware of Garrett's old Instagram behavior while filming or in picking him to be her future husband. In a since-deleted IG account, Garrett was seen liking a number of offensive memes that mocked transgender people, immigrants and the Parkland shooting ... all of which surfaced during the season.

Tamar Braxton isn't mad at Delta Airlines after one of their pilots ridiculed her on a flight -- which her sis chalked up to #flyingwhileblack -- but she does think they make crappy hires.

We got the former co-host of "The Real" at LAX just a few days after her sister, Towanda, posted a video of a Delta pilot chastising Tamar and condescendingly asking if she could follow simple direction from flight attendants.

Towanda blamed the confrontation on race, but Tamar thinks it has more to do with how she's portrayed in the media -- specifically, on TV.

She hasn't been on "The Real" since 2016, but did recently ink a deal with Steve Harvey's production company for her own talk show. She's also made appearances on VH1's "Hip Hop Squares," where she's had some confrontations.