Controversial S#!T

Ex-Megadeth guitarist Marty Friedman is ripping Spotify CEO Daniel Ek for saying the cost of making music nowadays is practically zilch ... telling us that just proves Ek is clueless about the industry.

Daniel ruffled feathers among artists recently by declaring on social media, "Today, with the cost of creating content being close to zero, people can share an incredible amount of content."

Marty, who also jammed with Cacophony in the '80s, is going scorched earth, telling TMZ ... Daniel's comment is one of the most moronic things he's ever read, and it's weird a CEO would say something so absolutely asinine.

Former NXIVM sex cult member India Oxenberg says folks need to cut TikTok star Miranda Derrick some slack ... 'cause she may well be in a cult and not even realize she's been brainwashed.

India, who broke free from NXIVM after 7 years under the cult's spell, tells TMZ ... she's known about Miranda's alleged cult, 7M Films, for years and thinks it's likely Miranda doesn't fully understand the influence the group is exerting over her life.

Miranda denies 7M is a cult, and says she's not some mindless zombie under founder Robert Shinn's control -- pushing back against a narrative seen in the new "Dancing for the Devil" Netflix doc -- but India says groups like 7M and NXIVM have perfected the art of controlling communication with those on the outside.

An L.A. city councilman is accusing a neighboring city's police department of dumping a homeless man in his backyard and leaving him high and dry ... and he's got video.

Paul Krekorian -- who represents Los Angeles' 2nd District -- put forth surveillance footage Friday, via FOX 11 reporter Matthew Seedorff, that he claims shows Burbank PD officers dropping off a homeless man right in front of his office in North Hollywood Thursday.

The footage appears to show 2 cops escorting a man out from the back of their patrol vehicle, where he looks to be screaming and/or talking to himself ... before getting on the ground.

More fallout for Diddy in the wake of the release of the Cassie beating video ... he no longer has a major accolade from a famous HBCU that he was once a student at.

Howard University announced Friday its Board of Trustees is revoking Diddy's honorary degree -- this as a result of the recent release of a video showing Diddy's 2016 assault on his then-girlfriend inside an L.A. hotel.

Diddy got his honorary degree from Howard in 2014 -- but now, the university says they've found his behavior "so fundamentally incompatible with Howard University’s core values and beliefs that he is deemed no longer worthy to hold the institution’s highest honor."

The dad who rushed his daughter's graduation stage to keep her superintendent away seemed to be waiting for his moment to shine -- based on new video we got a hold of.

TMZ has obtained additional footage from Baraboo PD that shows the incident in question -- namely, the father of the high school girl who was ready to walk across the stage ... only for her dad to jump in and whisk away the superintendent, refusing to let him shake her hand.

We've seen this moment from one POV -- but now, in this new clip, we can see it from a bird's eye view ... capturing the entire ruckus from beginning to end with a wide angle.

Comedian Clayton English is thanking Tyler Perry for putting a brighter spotlight on his racial profiling lawsuit ... and says his run-in with airport cops has him thinking some Black cops absolutely discriminate against Black citizens.

The comedic actor filed suit against the Clayton County Police Department -- along with fellow comedian Eric André -- for separate incidents of alleged racial profiling they experienced at Atlanta's Harstfield-Jackson Airport.

English says he was walking down the jet bridge to board a flight -- having already gone through security and getting his ticket scanned -- when officers stopped him and hit him with a barrage of questions.

Tiffany Haddish once told Leonardo DiCaprio she wanted to shag -- but with one major condition ... which sounds a little controversial, even though she's clearly joking.

Speaking on SiriusXM's "The Howard Stern Show" Thursday, the actress recounted the first time she met Leo -- with her saying, "I told him, 'I want to f***, but only if you're in character from 'What's Eating Gilbert Grape.'"

As you may know ... Leo starred in the 1993 flick alongside Johnny Depp ... playing the role of Arnie Grape, a young boy with special needs.

Alex Jones has filed to liquidate his assets to help pay down the $1.5 billion he owes to Sandy Hook families -- a debt he's still straddled with nearly 2 years after the verdict.

In docs filed Thursday, the controversial podcaster's lawyers are asking the judge to convert his Chapter 11 bankruptcy into a simple Chapter 7 liquidation ... stating Alex "believes there's no reasonable prospect of a successful reorganization."

The Chapter 7 liquidation means a trustee will come in and sell off most of his assets to pay his creditors ... rather than continuing his effort to restructure his debts in a Chapter 11.

The dad who rushed his daughter's graduation stage to prevent her from shaking a superintendent's hand actually told cops why he did it ... and it doesn't look like he mentioned race at all.

According to the police report submitted by Baraboo PD, cops say the father was questioned by officers that night -- and in terms of a rationale ... they claim he told them he had some kind of personal history with superintendent Rainey Briggs ... the Black school official he shoved away.

Per the docs, obtained by TMZ, the dad told police he had "past issues with Rainey and dislike[d] him." He also allegedly said he didn't want Rainey to have the satisfaction of shaking his daughter's hand.

Tyler Perry's sick of alleged racial profiling at his local airport ... blasting cops for what he sees as the disproportionate stopping of Black people after they're already past TSA.

The film and TV mogul wrote an op-ed for The Atlanta Journal-Constitution Thursday ... offering his take after a couple of fellow entertainers filed a lawsuit in 2022 for allegedly getting stopped at ATL's Hartsfield-Jackson Airport.

In the piece, TP breaks down the case made by the two comedians in the lawsuit -- Eric André and Clayton English -- who say they were stopped for no reason while just a few steps away from boarding separate flights several months apart in 2021.

A Wisconsin dad is under fire for rushing the stage at his daughter's high school graduation to shove a school official from the handshake lineup ... and some think race is involved.

This went down at Baraboo High School last week, when they were holding their ceremony for the outgoing seniors -- and video captured this awkward moment ... when a girl was walking across the stage and preparing to shake hands with school district bigwigs.

The superintendent, who's Black, is at the end of the line and he's ready to put 'er there -- but the girl's father pops up out of nowhere from the crowd, whisking him away fast.

Will Smith is not ignoring the elephant in the room -- there's a scene in his new 'Bad Boys' movie where he's repeatedly slapped, a pretty clear nod to his infamous Chris Rock moment ... but the question is why now?

Early reviews for "Bad Boys: Ride or Die" are trickling out with the action flick hitting theaters Thursday night ... and word is Will's character, Mike Lowry, gets slapped multiple times by Martin Lawrence's character, Marcus Burnett.

The slap scene is supposedly near the film's climax, and it sounds like there are a few layers to the joke. Detective Burnett keeps calling his partner, "bad boy" while slapping him in the face.

Here's what you didn't see when Vice President Kamala Harris' sat down with Jimmy Kimmel -- an activist group infiltrated the audience and called her out for supporting Israel, screaming and chanting as security dragged them out.

CODEPINK -- an anti-war activist group -- posted a clip of the clash, which started Wednesday evening with pro-Palestinian protesters calling Harris a murderer who supports genocide in the Middle East.

Jimmy tried to crack some jokes in the moment before the house band broke into a Stevie Wonder classic -- an odd accompaniment as security removed the shouting protesters.

Angel Reese and her Chicago Sky teammates claim a relentless camera guy harassed Chennedy Carter outside their Washington, D.C. hotel on Wednesday ... praising their security staffers for stepping in and de-escalating the situation.

A number of Sky hoopers went to X to share their side of the interaction ahead of Thursday's contest against the Mystics ... with several saying the photog crossed the line when trying to speak with Carter about her recent flagrant foul on Indiana Fever star Caitlin Clark over the weekend.

A clip of the alleged moment was briefly posted to the photog's social media account ... but was later deleted.

Vivienne Jolie-Pitt appears to be following in her older sister's footsteps -- dropping her pop's last name professionally in a Broadway playbill, something she reportedly asked to have changed.

The 15-year-old daughter of Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie is currently working as a producer's assistant for the Broadway show 'The Outsiders' -- and, of course, she gets a credit in the playbill ... except it's written as "Vivienne Jolie," nothing more.

ET cites a source who claims the change isn't due to a lack of space ... instead, VJP apparently asked to leave "Pitt" off -- another of Brad's kids seemingly sending a message.

Halyna Hutchins' family's attorney is pissed about Alec Baldwin's new reality show ... side-eyeing the timing of the announcement and referring to it as a public relations stunt.

Gloria Allred -- who's repping members of the late cinematographer's family -- tells TMZ ... she's not buying any sort of coincidence in the announcement's release coming just a month before his involuntary manslaughter criminal trial begins.

She says, "This appears to me, to be a calculated and cynical public relations move to try to influence the jury pool in New Mexico to think of him as a sympathetic family man rather than as the killer of Halyna Hutchins, who was the beloved daughter of our clients Olga Solovey, Halyna’s mother, Anatolii Androsovych, Halyna’s father, and Svetlana Zemko, Halyna’s sister."