TV

The soap star ogled by Donald Trump and Billy Bush on that "Access Hollywood" video says what the 2 guys did is textbook misogyny.

Arianne Zucker said on "Today" she's going to try and turn this into a positive, by showing her daughter how to react in the face of gutter talk against women.

She's pretty compelling.

Former Miss Teen USA Katie Blair says Donald Trump is far from the sleazy guy he's being made out to be ... based on her experiences with him on TV shows and pageants.

Katie was Miss Teen USA '06 and Miss CA USA '11 ... and Trump owned both pageants at the time. We talked to her about her interactions with the boss, and while she admits there were plenty of situations for him to leer ... she insists it NEVER happened.

Katie says anyone who's had any experience with live TV would know there's an obvious reason why Trump couldn't have done many of the things some other pageant contestants have accused him of doing.

Check out her take on Trump -- who stood by her during her scandal with former Miss USA Tara Conner. Katie's clearly got his back when it comes to his ethics.

As for whether he's got her vote? Katie's made her decision, though it's hardly a ringing endorsement.

Who knew Alex Trebek was a trash talker?

The "Jeopardy!" host blasted a contestant in Wednesday's show because of -- get this -- her taste in music. Check out the vid ... Alex gave her full-on Trump treatment.

BTW ... the woman is Susan Cole, a legislative librarian from Bowie, Maryland. And she scorched the competition ... taking home a cool $22k.

R&B singer Michel'le and Lifetime refuse to change a frame of her upcoming TV movie ... despite Dr. Dre's threat to sue if it makes him look like a woman abuser.

"Surviving Compton: Dre, Suge & Michel'le" depicts the singer's past relationship with Dre -- they have a 25-year-old son together -- and includes her allegations of domestic violence. Michel'le came on "TMZ Live" Wednesday and basically told her ex to bring it on in court.

She insists Dre's cease and desist letter is an empty threat because she has the truth on her side.

Check out the clip, and in case you hadn't heard it before ... yes, that's her real speaking voice.

Tommy Ford -- who played Tommy on the '90s hit show "Martin" -- has died ... TMZ has learned.

Tommy passed away Wednesday in an Atlanta hospital surrounded by family and friends.

As we reported, Ford had been on life support after an aneurysm ruptured in his abdomen. He was initially hospitalized Sunday, and his health had declined since. Family made the decision to turn off support this afternoon.

Ford played Martin Lawrence's best friend for all 5 seasons of the show. Co-star Carl Payne arrived at Ford's bedside on Wednesday morning. He tells us, "On behalf of the family, we would like to thank everyone for their love, support and prayers." He says the family will announce funeral arrangements at a later date.

He was 52.

Tommy Ford -- who famously played Tommy on the '90s sitcom "Martin" -- is on life support at an Atlanta hospital after an aneurysm ruptured in his abdomen ... his wife tells TMZ.

Ford has been hospitalized since Sunday and his health has declined ever since.

He is currently on life support and is not expected to make it through the day. Ford's wife, Gina, says the family is still praying for him.

Earlier, Ford's pal, Anthony Anderson, tweeted Ford had died -- but at the time, he was still alive. We're told Anthony had received inaccurate information, and merely tweeted in support of his friend. He's since deleted the tweet.

Tommy starred in all 5 seasons of "Martin" as Martin Lawrence's level-headed best friend, who often played straight man to Martin's crazy antics.

He also appeared on "New York Undercover," "The Jamie Foxx Show" and "The Parkers."

Ford also wrote children's books that promoted drug-free and violence-free lifestyles.

NBC execs had a plan to time the release of the Donald Trump audio to have maximum impact on both the 2nd presidential debate and the general election ... sources connected with the network tell TMZ.

Multiple sources connected with NBC tell us ... top network execs knew about the video long before they publicly said they did, but wanted to hold it because it was too early in the election. The sources say many NBC execs have open disdain for Trump and their plan was to roll out the tape 48 hours before the debate so it would dominate the news cycle leading up to the face-off.

As we reported, Billy Bush was bragging about the tape -- in front of NBC execs at the Rio Olympics -- in early August. NBC says it's only known about the tape for a little more than a week.

We're told the plan was to edit the tape to keep the focus on Trump and not Billy. "Access Hollywood" we're told was not going to air the portion where Trump and Billy got off the bus and Billy goaded Trump and the soap star to hug. Our sources say the tape was going to be "sanitized" to protect Billy as much as possible.

Case in point ... after The Washington Post ran the story, 'Access' aired their footage and cut out the parts where Billy looked worse -- saying things like, "Jeez! Your girl's hot as s*** in the purple!"

We've told you the plan got derailed by Hurricane Matthew. Execs decided the wall-to-wall coverage of the storm would mess up the plan to dominate the news with the Trump tape, so they were going to hold it until Monday. It didn't sit well with some staffers who wanted it out pre-debate, so it was leaked to the Washington Post.

Lindsay Lohan is ready to make a comeback after a failed, and allegedly abusive, engagement ... according to her mom, Dina.

We got DiLo in NYC where she was out pitching TV shows. Unclear if any involve Lindsay since Dina's got 3 other kids, but Dina did reveal Lindsay's schedule is jam-packed with several other commitments. None of which involve TV or film at this point.

As for dating, Dina's got a plan for finding a new Mr. Right for Lindsay too.

Billy Bush has been all but fired by NBC for his part in the "Access Hollywood" Donald Trump outtakes, but his bosses had no problem with Billy's offhanded remarks about women ... for years.

Sources connected to "Access Hollywood" tell us, Billy and others would talk openly in the newsroom about women ... and some of it's even on tape. We're told some of the comments -- "Man, you look hot today," "Look at her legs," and "Man, she looks hot today!"

Billy was particularly impressed with Gigi Hadid and Taylor Swift's legs. He also, somewhat infamously, asked J Lo point-blank about her butt ... although that comment was at least on camera.

The point is ... we're told no one complained, and Billy wasn't the only one making those kinds of remarks.

What's more ... we're told a number of people knew about the Trump/Bush conversation when it went down in 2005, and again ... no one complained.

Gabrielle Union claims she is getting screwed into doing way more episodes of her hit BET show than she agreed to do in a single season ... and for a much lower price.

Union claims in a new lawsuit, BET is cramming 20 episodes of "Being Mary Jane" into Season 4 instead of splitting them into two seasons. Problem is she says network execs repeatedly promised her there would never be more than 13 episodes in a season. Plus, Gabby says her contract clearly states she gets a pay raise from $150k per episode to $165k per episode in Season 5.

In her lawsuit she also says BET's trying to cut corners on production cost by doing the ole 2-for-1.

Although, Union admits her contract allows for a maximum of 26 episodes per season -- she says that was merely a standard clause of all Viacom contracts, and again ... BET orally promised they'd never have the dough to shoot that many.

People at NBC knew about Donald Trump's crude convo with Billy Bush for at least 2 months ... because Billy was bragging about it back then.

TMZ has confirmed ... Billy was telling NBC staffers in Rio about the tape back in early August, when he was still working for "Access Hollywood." We're told word circulated because Billy made it clear Trump was trash-talking Nancy O'Dell.

NBC News says it didn't know about the outtakes until a week ago Monday, but the word around the network is people knew, including executives at 'Access,' which is an NBC property. We're told those executives had full knowledge of Billy's comments on the tape ... which creates a potential problem if NBC is serious about firing him.

We're told Bush's camp will argue they can't 86 him based on a "morality clause" because execs knew what he had said, and didn't discipline him at the time ... 11 years ago.

Gloria Allred is on a mission to get MGM TV Pres. Mark Burnett to release "The Apprentice" tapes -- which purportedly show more offensive comments from Donald Trump -- and she took her demands right to MGM's front door.

Allred and several other feminist leaders read their demands to Burnett Tuesday afternoon outside the studio's Bev Hills offices. She says she's been inundated with calls from women who claim they witnessed way more "locker room talk" on 'Apprentice' sets than what came out on the "Access Hollywood" tape with Billy Bush.

As we first reported ... MGM has said it can't legally release the footage due to confidentiality agreements -- but Allred says she wants to meet with MGM's attorneys face-to-face to discuss the legal restrictions.

Allred and co.'s argument is this -- whatever Trump said while shooting "The Apprentice" is relevant to whether he's fit to lead the nation.

"Access Hollywood" was locked and loaded to run the now-famous Donald Trump/Billy Bush outtakes last Friday ... but show honchos made a decision to delay it because of Hurricane Matthew, which pissed off a staffer who leaked the tape to The Washington Post ... sources connected with NBC tell TMZ.

We're told the bosses at 'Access' decided the Trump story could get buried if it ran Friday, when the hurricane seemed most ominous. But members of the staff were upset because they wanted the piece to run before Sunday's debate, and Monday was too late for them.

After the decision was made to wait, someone leaked it to The Washington Post.

Jimmi Simpson's character reluctantly tags along to a fictional theme park in the wildly hit show "Westworld" ... but in real life he'd jump head first.

"Westworld" -- which had the biggest premiere on HBO in years -- is a western world of which Jimmi's a fan.

We caught up with him at LAX and he tells us where else he'd like to end up ... if he could.

Think fossils.

BTW ... "Westworld" is pretty awesome.

Comedian Russell Peters thinks Billy Bush is getting a raw deal over the "Access Hollywood" fiasco.

Peters was leaving Catch in WeHo Monday night when he made his case for Billy, who has all but been fired from "Today."

"Veep" star Reid Scott cleans up after Julia Louis-Dreyfus' presidential character, Selina Meyer, on the hit HBO TV show, but wouldn't want to do it for Donald Trump.

Reid plays Deputy Director of Communications Dan Egan on the show. We got him at LAX where he told us Donald should just throw in the towel at this point.