Controversial S#!T

Disney+ customers tuning in to watch Elton John from the comfort of their couch got some unwanted politics mixed in with their music ... all thanks to an apparent hack of the streaming service's closed captioning feature.

Viewers reported on several occasions the name "Donald Trump" mixed in with the captioned lyrics during Sunday night's live broadcast. It appears to have happened during the songs "Levon" and "Candle in the Wind."

One Twitter user wrote, "Disney will be firing someone. They snuck Donald Trump into the closed captioning of the Elton John Live concert for about 30 seconds and then started to delete it." Another said, "The caption on this Elton John concert said “Donald Trump” for like a full minute.

The show, from Dodgers Stadium, marked the last of the U.S. leg of Elton's farewell tour, before he hits Europe and other parts of the world. Elton was also joined by Dua Lipa and Kiki Dee during the event.

One of the best high school football players in the country had his Florida scholarship offer pulled this weekend ... after he was seen on video rapping the n-word.

Marcus Stokes posted the quick, two-second clip on his social media page last week -- appearing to show the quarterback recruit singing, "Welcome back, n***a."

Almost immediately afterward, the Nease H.S. athlete, who's white, received backlash for it ... and on Sunday, the Univ. of Florida made the decision to pull their offer from him.

Stokes had been committed to attending the school since early July.

"I was in my car listening to rap music, rapping along to the words and posted a video of it on social media," Stokes explained on his Twitter page on Sunday.

"I deeply apologize for the words in the song that I chose to say. It was hurtful and offensive to many people, and I regret that."

Stokes continued, "I fully accept the consequences for my actions, and I respect the University of Florida's decision to withdraw my scholarship offer to play football."

Stokes had a great junior season at Nease -- but struggled in his senior season this year. Still, the 6-foot-1, 190-pound dual-threat QB was rated a four-star recruit by 247Sports ... and the 14th-ranked signal-caller in the nation.

Stokes had received offers from several other schools -- including Penn State, Pittsburgh and Virginia Tech -- during his H.S. career ... though it's unclear if those scholarship offers now still stand.

The World Cup teams expecting to wear rainbow-colored armbands promoting anti-discrimination have now backed out of the plan ... after FIFA warned the squads they would face punishment for donning the pieces.

Several players from England, Belgium, Wales, the Netherlands, Switzerland, Denmark and Germany were all scheduled to help promote diversity and inclusion in Qatar, where homosexuality is illegal, with the markings on their jerseys.

But, after FIFA threatened to issue yellow cards during games over it all, the teams announced Monday they would not go through with the plan.

"FIFA has been very clear that it will impose sporting sanctions if our captains wear the armbands on the field of play," the teams said in a joint statement.

"As national federations, we can't put our players in a position where they could face sporting sanctions including bookings, so we have asked the captains not to attempt to wear the armbands in FIFA World Cup games."

The teams said they were prepared to pay any fines ... but when the potential of yellow cards and even ejections came into play, they backed out.

The squads called it all "frustrating" ... adding that their "players and coaches are disappointed."

"They are strong supporters of inclusion and will show support in other ways," they wrote.

FA Wales officials added in a tweet early Monday morning that despite having to pull out of the armband movement, "we remain with the belief that football is for everyone and stand with our LGBTQ+ members of the Welsh football family."

Kyrie Irving, suspended since November 3rd, has rejoined his Nets teammates and is expected to play Sunday night ... nearly a month after posting a link to a controversial movie.

30-year-old Irving was at Nets shootaround Sunday morning -- hours before BK plays the Grizzlies at Barclays -- once again told reporters he wasn't antisemitic.

"I don’t stand for anything close to hate speech or antisemitism or anything that is going against the human race," Irving said.

"I feel like we all should have an opportunity to speak for ourselves when things are assumed about us and I feel it was necessary for me to stand in this place and take accountability for my actions, because there was a way I should have handled all this and as I look back and reflect when I had the opportunity to offer my deep regrets to anyone that felt threatened or felt hurt by what I posted, that wasn’t my intent at all."

Of course, it was way back on October 27th Kyrie tweeted a link to the movie "Hebrew to Negroes: Wake Up Black America" ... a film full of antisemitic tropes.

Irving eventually deleted the tweet ... but refused to apologize for giving the movie attention. After multiple missed opportunities to apologize, the Nets suspended Kyrie on November 3, saying he was "unfit" to be a Net.

But, after meeting several criteria ... including a face-to-face with NBA commissioner Adam Silver, the Nets organization believes Kyrie has done enough.

A brutal assault of an older couple leaving the Elton John concert at Dodger Stadium this week was captured on camera -- as were the alleged assailants ... and TMZ has the video.

This incident has been going viral on social media the past couple days, and for good reason ... a man and a woman, both in their 60s, were senselessly attacked Thursday night by what we're told were a group of at least 4-6 people, this while trying to exit the parking lot.

Sources with direct knowledge tell TMZ ... the older couple, who'd gone to the concert by themselves, were getting ready to leave when a woman allegedly punched their sideview mirror, causing the husband to get out, confront her and and seek an explanation.

We're told the woman then tried to swing on the older man, who blocked her. At this point, our sources say the gentleman was mobbed by at least two men who started wailing on him ... part of which is on video. This footage is graphic, but you can see him being pummeled.

Sadly, it wasn't over yet ... we're told the wife hopped out to help her husband, only to allegedly be body slammed to the ground as well by some men in the group. She was knocked unconscious, and both of them were left there helplessly as people stood around.

Our sources say bystanders filmed it, but not much else to help these poor folks. As the group tried to walk away from the scene, one man followed them and recorded ... only to apparently be attacked himself when the guy in black noticed him and pounced.

Eventually, we're told the couple was helped back into their car and the wife came to. Our sources say they were waiting for EMS to show up ... but that it took far too long for any first-responders and/or stadium security to arrive. After some time, the wife felt okay enough to drive both of them to the hospital ... where we're told the husband was admitted.

At some point, somebody recorded what we're told was one of the women who was allegedly involved being questioned by what looks like a cop. Our sources say the officer didn't realize she was one of the people who was allegedly in the mix ... and was cut loose.

The children of this couple -- who were not present during the night in question -- are now desperately pleading with the public to come forward with any information to identify the 6 people they claim thrashed their parents, and have filed a police report to boot.

As you can imagine, they want justice for their family ... as their parents could've easily been killed, and as of now -- the alleged attackers have seemingly gotten away with it scot-free.

Our law enforcement sources tell us the LAPD is aware of the incident and are investigating. No arrests have been made. We've reached out to Dodger Stadium ... no word back yet.

Ticketmaster is spelling out what went wrong with their Taylor Swift tour sales -- and the justification for the fiasco was basically chalked up to ... a necessary evil to defeat bots.

The Live Nation company posted an explainer Friday night, giving an in-depth breakdown of why so many people had such a hard time buying tickets to TS's 'Eras Tour' during the presale window this week ... and it consisted of both an apology and a defense of the chaos.

For starters, Ticketmaster acknowledges what TayTay said ... that she was told they were anticipating an unprecedented amount of traffic and were prepared. However, TM adds that despite this ... when the digital doors actually opened, their expectations were exceeded.

Ticketmaster posted a graph that shows just how many people (and not-real-people) flooded their site ... even though they had a rigorous registration system in place to make sure real, authenticated fans were able to buy tickets, as opposed to spammers who would otherwise snap them up in bulk and hawk them on the resale market with massive markups.

Regardless of this seemingly airtight system being in place -- consisting of 3.5 million users successfully preregistering/confirming their IDs -- Ticketmaster says that on the day of the sale, even more unregistered fans and bots came flocking in ... partially crashing the site.

To resolve this record amount of traffic while simultaneously taking care of the folks who should've been guaranteed a chance to buy passes ... Ticketmaster says it started staggering queues, the result of which ended with longer wait times and, inevitably, frustrated users.

Ticketmaster says they know this caused confusion -- and in some cases, people to lose their spots outright -- but insists it was the best option under the circumstances. TM also proudly touts the fact 2.4 million tickets were, in fact, ultimately sold to authenticated fans ... and that less than 5% of the tickets sold ended up for resale, a W in the site's book.

Ticketmaster says it regrets the fact some were left empty-handed, but also adds this perspective ... it's unfeasible to please everyone, especially at this level of interest.

TM says, "[B]ased on the volume of traffic to our site, Taylor would need to perform over 900 stadium shows (almost 20x the number of shows she is doing) … that’s a stadium show every single night for the next 2.5 years. While it’s impossible for everyone to get tickets to these shows, we know we can do more to improve ... and that’s what we’re focused on."

Quentin Tarantino says he wishes he would've confronted his longtime collaborator Harvey Weinstein -- especially in the wake of the criminal allegations that have surfaced.

The director was grilled by Chris Wallace on his CNN show Friday night ... getting asked why he didn't do more to protect women in HW's orbit if he was, in fact, aware of the film producer's behavior -- something Tarantino has alluded to in recent years.

QT clarified that while he had heard things about Weinstein ... he insists he was never privy to anything regarding rape or sexual assault -- which, among other things, has been alleged against the ex-movie mogul by a lot of women ... dating back to the '90s.

Tarantino says his understanding of Weinstein's alleged MO was comparable to something from "Mad Men" -- AKA, office bosses chasing their secretaries around the desk and trying to get handsy. This is the characterization Tarantino says was communicated to him back then. He notes, yes, this was still wrong ... but denies knowledge of anything more serious.

Wallace asks if he has any regrets, and Tarantino says he does -- not about working with HW, though, but not confronting him about his supposed playful skirt-chasing. The reason Tarantino says he didn't talk to him about it is because he thought it was pathetic ... and didn't want to approach his friend, who was also kinda his boss, about something so juvenile.

Elon Musk seems to be leaving the fate of Donald Trump's Twitter account up to bird app users ... asking folks to vote on his reinstatement.

Elon posted a Twitter poll Friday on his account, asking users to vote either "Yes" or "No" on reinstating the former president's Twitter page.

Musk first posted the poll then left a reply ... "Vox Populi, Vox Dei" ... a Latin phrase meaning, "the voice of the people is the voice of God."

Elon's poll already has 1.4 million responses and counting, and it's not even been live for an hour. The poll will be up for 24 hours, giving folks until Saturday evening to decide.

As you know, Trump was banned from Twitter by the previous ownership in the wake of the Jan. 6 riot. The former president is also banned from other mainstream social media apps.

Elon's hinted at Trump's return to Twitter since buying the bird app for $44 billion ... but this is the first time he's sought feedback through a Twitter poll.

The World Cup is just a day away, and the biggest sporting event in the world is already mired in controversy -- much stemming from alleged human rights issues -- causing some to boycott the soccer tourney ... something Akon says makes no sense.

TMZ Sports ran into the rap star, a big soccer fan, at LAX on Wednesday -- just four days before the 2022 FIFA World Cup kicks off in Qatar -- and we asked him about fans who say they won't watch because of the controversy surrounding the host country.

"I don't understand the purpose of the boycott, me personally, I think everywhere you go in the world there's different cultures, different way of living, different life standards," Akon explained.

The 5x Grammy nominee went on to say he believes many of his fellow Americans who are calling for a boycott don't actually understand why they're refusing to watch.

"I think when you look at a place like America, we have a tendency of taking certain things for granted, and we got a tendency of following suit of things we don't understand. Instead of taking a trip there to understand the culture, understand what's going on, you're just going to follow suit cause everybody else says there's humanitarian issues."

FYI, Dua Lipa recently quelled speculation she'd perform in Qatar, saying she wouldn't go to the country until they "fulfilled all the human rights pledges it made when it won the right to host the World Cup." Rod Stewart also said he was offered a million dollars to perform, but he refused.

Of course, Qatar, a relatively small peninsular country with a population of under 3 million, has been accused of discriminating against people in the LGBTQ community. There are also reports of migrant workers dying while working under unsafe conditions in an effort to finish the WC facilities in the months before the tourney. Officials have also interfered with the press. These are just a few of the troubling allegations made against Qatar.

But, Akon sees it differently than the boycotters ... it's not that he's saying he agrees with Qatar, he's saying he recognizes that their culture is different.

"I think a lot of that is a cultural issue, a cultural difference. You know when you look at a place like Africa, Middle East, a lot of places, LGBTQ is not really a culture they came up under," Akon says.

"It's not a matter of dislike. It's just a different culture. know what I'm saying? it's just a matter of people better understanding each other's culture, understanding the reasons and the whys."

Akon believes we'd be a lot better off talking to the Qatari people and finding common ground, rather than ignoring them.

"How about going to explain your view from your position? Help them better understand. Know what I mean? Life is about communication. I think the moment people start jumping to conclusions and just take a position before understanding, things are always gonna be complicated."

Maluma isn't exactly kicking off the World Cup on a high note ... a reporter put him on the spot over his decision to perform -- as other artists boycott -- so, he stormed out of the interview.

The "Hawái" singer sat down for an interview Friday, two days before the start of the FIFA World Cup, with Israel's state-owned Kan TV and it quickly got heated when the interviewer asked Maluma about his thoughts on Qatar's human rights violations.

As we reported, Dua Lipa and Shakira both turned down gigs at the World Cup ... citing the country's human rights record.

Maluma teamed up with Nicki Minaj and Lebanese singer Myriam Fares for the official FIFA Fan Festival anthem ... and he was asked if he had a problem with Qatar's reputation.

Maluma dodged the first question with skill, saying he's performing because he enjoys life, music and soccer -- but when pressed for more than that, Maluma stood up, asked someone off camera if he needed to answer at all, then simply stormed off and called the reporter "rude."

Sources with direct knowledge tell TMZ ... Maluma's performing at the World Cup strictly because, as he said, he loves the sport. We're told he was a soccer player growing up in Colombia and left the sport to become an artist, but it's been always been a dream of his to perform at a World Cup.

What's odd about Maluma's heated interview is ... the network reporter giving him a hard time for, in his words, "whitewashing" Qatar, is actually there in Qatar covering the World Cup and in doing so, publicizing it.

Banksy is going to war with Guess -- accusing the clothing brand of stealing his work -- and now encouraging folks to steal from the retailer's London store.

The famous graffiti artist just put out a call to all shoplifters, encouraging them to visit the Guess retailer on Regent Street in London.

Banksy posted an image of the Guess storefront, and it looks like the retailer has his Flower Thrower graffiti displayed along with clothes bearing some of his famous works.

In his post, Banksy rips into Guess, saying ... "They've helped themselves to my artwork without asking, how can it be wrong for you to do the same to their clothes?"

Guess recently started selling a new collection and the clothing line ads brag about items "with graffiti by Banksy." Guess says the collection is a collab with Brandalised, which Guess describes as "an urban graffiti license whose mission is to offer Banksy fans affordable graffiti collectibles."

Taylor Swift is sorry for her fans who feel they were screwed by Ticketmaster in trying to score tickets for her tour ... blasting the company for failing to deliver on its promise for a smooth rollout.

The singer just broke her silence on the concert ticket disaster, with a lengthy statement on her Instagram Story where she's royally pissed at Ticketmaster ... echoing the same feelings from her legions of fans.

Taylor says she's extremely protective of her fans and adds, "It's really difficult for me to trust an outside entity with these relationships and loyalties, and excruciating for me to just watch mistakes happen with no recourse."

TS also says, "There are a multitude of reasons why people had such a hard time trying to get tickets and I’m trying to figure out how this situation can be improved moving forward."

She's pretty pissed at Ticketmaster, explaining ... "I'm not going to make excuses for anyone because we asked them, multiple times, if they could handle this kind of demand and we were assured they could. It's truly amazing that 2.4 million people got tickets, but it really pisses me off that a lot of them feel like they went through several bear attacks to get them."

As we reported, there were tons of issues and delays with the Ticketmaster presale, and the ticket giant even canceled the public sale, and now the resale market is seeing sky-high price tags.

Taylor ends with a message to the fans who didn't get lucky enough to score tickets ... saying, "My hope is to provide more opportunities for us to all get together and sing these songs. Thank you for wanting to be there. You have no idea how much that means."

Elon Musk will tell ya the reports of Twitter's death are greatly exaggerated -- in fact, although news spread quickly the app's on the verge of shutdown, Elon says it had one of its best days ever.

Thursday night, while #RIPTwitter became the number 1 trending topic in the U.S., the Chief Twit himself tweeted, "We just hit another all-time high in Twitter usage lol ... let that sink in."

That tweet came after hundreds of his employees reportedly quit ... following his demands for people within the company to work "long hours at high intensity" or get booted.

The deadline for jumping ship or staying aboard was reportedly Thursday at 5 PM ... and it looks like a good amount were fine with saying goodbye.

The reported mass jump prompted millions of tweeters to take it as a sign of the end for the bird app ... although the surge to which Elon referred might have a lot to do with people using the "dead" platform to talk about its death.

Pretty damn meta (not you, Zuckerberg).

FYI -- a pretty cold projection popped up on the company's HQ in San Fran Thursday night, during this "all-time high" ... calling Elon a slew of names that just gets more and more brutal.

The judge who presided over Casey Anthony’s murder trial thinks prosecutors made a strong enough case to win a conviction ... but he's giving her lawyers props for their strategy.

Judge Belvin Perry Jr. joined us Thursday on "TMZ Live," and we asked if he was surprised the jury acquitted Casey of murder, manslaughter and child abuse following 2-year-old daughter Caylee's death. Casey was only found guilty of lying to cops.

Perry Jr. says he thought prosecutors presented enough evidence for the jury to convict Casey ... but still, he wasn't shocked when the jury acquitted her, because he's learned there are no locks when it comes to criminal trials.

Judge Perry Jr. is now retired from the bench, and told us a lot of what Casey's saying in a new Peacock documentary is the same "crap" she floated during the trial. Of course, she was acquitted, but Perry says that doesn't mean the jury bought what Casey was saying back then.

Instead, he gives credit to her defense attorneys, Jose Baez and Cheney Mason, who "littered that case with as much reasonable doubt as they possibly could."

Casey didn't take the stand during the trial and is now giving her version of events in an upcoming Peacock documentary -- but the former judge told us there are all sorts of problems with her claims, the new ones and the old ones.

Taylor Swift fans are outraged after waiting hours and shelling out big money just for a shot at getting tickets -- and they've griped enough to spark a new antitrust investigation into Ticketmaster.

Ever since Tuesday, Swifties have been sounding off about the disastrous presale for Taylor's upcoming tour, but Tennessee's attorney general thinks this might go beyond whining Gen Zers ... it could be a crime.

TN AG Jonathan Skrmetti says antitrust violations "could be an issue" for Ticketmaster. He's concerned the company lacks competition ... and with that, customers are left with sky-high prices and a poor experience getting tix.

Skrmetti questions Ticketmaster's lack of preparation -- he says given the company's size, it should've been ready for the "unprecedented demand" from Taylor's legion of fans. The woman commanded the Billboard Hot 100's entire top 10, after all!!!

As we reported ... Ticketmaster was in shambles as fans attempted to get their hands on a ticket to "The Eras Tour." Potential buyers were left in limbo after the website crashed ... and frankly, Ticketmaster's explanation of why things went wrong didn't make it any better.

Skrmetti's concern is Ticketmaster doesn't worry about pissing off fans -- of Taylor or any other artist -- because if they want to see a concert, there's typically no avoiding Ticketmaster.

The A.G.'s office has received a number of complaints from customers who experienced a severe lack of customer support, while others said Ticketmaster told them to wait 5 days for a response.

The good news for Swifties is you can still get Taylor tix, but the bad news is it's probably gonna cost ya a lot more on sites like StubHub.

Candace Cameron Bure says she has love for everybody -- after facing a rash of criticism for comments she made about focusing on "traditional" families on her new network -- but she isn't backing down on her position.

The new chief creative officer at the Great American Family network released a statement Monday, saying in part, "I am a devoted Christian. Which means that I believe that every human being bears the image of God. Because of that, I am called to love all people, and I do. If you know me, you know that I am a person who loves fiercely and indiscriminately."

She continues, "My heart yearns to build bridges and bring people one step closer to God, to love others well, and to simply be a reflection of God’s huge love for all of us."

As we reported, Bure chatted with The WSJ about her new role on the network, explaining they'd work to highlight heterosexual relationships ... unlike The Hallmark Channel. Though she says The WSJ didn't include everything.

Bure states, "I had also expressed in my interview, which was not included, that people of all ethnicities and identities have and will continue to contribute to the network in great ways both in front of and behind the camera, which I encourage and fully support."

She ends her statement by saying, "The God we serve is a wildly creative and loving God.  He didn’t just capture a small part of my heart, He has captured all of my heart. He will be reflected in everything I do and say; in my family, my work and my interactions with people from all walks of life, God’s love and God’s compassion is front and center."