Viral

Wayne Gretzky is not only The Great One on the ice ... but clearly off of it too -- 'cause the NHL legend made a fan's life by re-autographing a baby shoe, and the story is awesome.

Back in 1986, a little boy and his mother ran into Gretzky -- but they had one problem ... they had no hockey memorabilia for Wayne to sign.

So, Mom thought quickly on her feet, handed over her little boy's Nike shoe ... and Gretzky gladly slapped his John Hancock on it.

The piece actually came out pretty cool ... it's a baby shoe with Wayne Gretzky's signature on it!!

But, after 30-plus years ... the signature faded, and the boy who had kept it all that time was heartbroken.

So much so, he says he tried EVERYTHING he could to get in touch with Gretzky to have him re-sign the shoe.

Fortunately, after years of reaching out, he posted his story on a Facebook group's page ... and the guys at Upper Deck eventually caught wind of it and decided to lend a helping hand.

They were able to ultimately get the shoe back in front of Gretzky ... and, after explaining to him the story of it all -- the hockey legend gladly signed it again!!

The piece is now truly incredible ... Gretzky wrote "1/1" on it alongside his signature -- and Upper Deck authenticated it and sent it back to the fan, who couldn't have been more grateful.

"I can't thank everyone enough that helped get this done," the fan said. "This shoe will remain in my Family forever. If I thought it was priceless before, it has now become even more priceless if that’s possible."

Italians now have an option for who makes their most beloved food -- their favorite neighborhood pizzaiolo or ... a machine!!! Yeah, some folks ain't happy about option dua.

A company called "Mr. Go Pizza" rolled out pizza vending machines Thursday in Rome -- offering 4 kinds of pie which take just 3 minutes to make, and cost as little as $5. The machine kneads the dough, puts on toppings and bakes ... all in a small glass window, so customers can see the magic.

Well, as you can imagine, in Italy ... not everyone thinks it's magic. A couple early reviews: "Acceptable" if you're in a hurry, while a student from Naples (birthplace of pizza) said it tastes like a bread wrap.

Look, it's one thing if machines/robots wanna take over the world -- we all kind of expect that -- but can't we keep A.I. out of our pizzas???

No word on Mr. Go Pizza's expansion plans, but if it's in Italy today, can Brooklyn, the Jersey Shore and Chicago be far behind?

The mother of the Florida 6-year-old paddled by her principal had the tables turned on her -- as investigators grilled her kids about alleged neglect at home.

The family's attorney, Brent Probinsky, tells TMZ ... the little girl and 2 of her siblings -- plus a cousin for whom the mom cares -- were yanked out of class Tuesday by officials with the Florida Dept. of Children and Families, and questioned one by one.

Probinsky tells us this was done without the mother's knowledge, and he only learned about it after the fact when the Dept. came to him seeking to talk to the mom.

As for what all the fuss was about -- we're told the kids were asked if their mother is abusive in the home ... to which the children said no. Probinsky says the investigators then told him they wanted to follow up with the mother to ask why she didn't step in and intervene during her daughter's paddling.

Apparently, investigators were acting on a tip about the mom allegedly being neglectful -- but so far, there doesn't appear to be any evidence of that. Probinsky says it's an outrage law enforcement would come after the mom, when the real culprit's on camera in the paddling video.

As Probinsky previously explained -- there's a number of reasons the mom didn't step in ... for one, she's undocumented and was afraid of repercussions.

There was also a language barrier, and the mother didn't know what was about to happen.

Hell might be freezing over -- Charles Barkley no longer sucks at golf!!!

Go ahead and check your calendar -- it's not April Fools' Day -- and if you need visual proof, just check out the NBA legend's drive at the Regions Tradition Pro-Am on Wednesday ... when he teed off and ripped a shot straight down the fairway!!

Of course, Barkley was famous for his turrrrrible golf swing ... but was never shy to put his god-awful skills on display.

As we previously reported, Barkley flirted with mediocrity by tweaking his swing back in 2015 ... but sadly, he fell back into his old ways of being tremendously bad.

Chuck has apparently been busting his ass on the links to STAY good this time around, hiring pro trainer Stan Utley to help him get his handicap down to SINGLE DIGITS, according to reporter Drew Carter.

Check out the new and improved product -- the Hall of Famer looks like he really knows what he's doing now ... from the practice swings to actually connecting with the ball (have you EVER heard one of his shots make that clean *ping* sound before?!?!)

It couldn't have come at a better time for Barkley -- he's facing off against huge names like Nick Saban, Bo Jackson, Tommy Tuberville and more at the Greystone Golf and Country Club in Hoover, Alabama.

And, for the first time, the dude might not make a fool of himself on the links!!

Chauvin's defense attorney is going to have a harder time of convincing a judge a new trial is warranted than he may think ... so says a noted law professor, Tamara Rice Lave.

Lave -- who teaches at the University of Miami School of Law -- came on "TMZ Live" Wednesday and explained why Brandon Mitchell going to the MLK rally in August actually wouldn't be grounds for a restart ... saying the devil is in the details on this one.

Watch ... she tells us the MLK event was NOT advertised as an anti-police demonstration, but simply a commemoration on Dr. King's historic March on Washington. The fact he was wearing a shirt that sympathizes with BLM is a footnote in her view, and one that wouldn't necessarily persuade an appellate judge to buck the trial court's ruling.

She also makes a good point about Mitchell's POV being communicated early and often -- he relayed that he supported BLM during questioning, and still wasn't ruled out at the time. And, as Lave notes, you can't just boot someone from a jury because of the color of their skin ... so, Chauvin's team might have their work cut out for them here.

The Derek Chauvin trial juror who was photographed at an MLK rally last year -- wearing a shirt with the words "Get your knee off our necks" -- will absolutely be a key factor in Chauvin's attempt to get a new trial ... TMZ has learned.

As you know, Chauvin's defense attorney Eric Nelson filed a motion Tuesday requesting a new trial. The docs made no specific mention of the juror, Brandon Mitchell, but did use the words "jury misconduct."

Sources familiar tell us the Mitchell issue is on the table and WILL be addressed during arguments in court to support the motion for a new trial.

If you missed it, Mitchell -- one of the only jurors from the trial who has since spoken out about the guilty verdict -- went to a BLM-organized rally last August in D.C. to commemorate Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s 1963 March on Washington. Mitchell was photographed there wearing a shirt with MLK's photo and the words ... a pretty clear reference to George Floyd's killing.

Also highly relevant is the fact George's family members spoke at the rally. Now, here's why this could be problematic.

Mitchell told the Star Tribune he answered "no" on the early jury questionnaire when asked 2 questions about attending demonstrations against police brutality -- one specific to Minneapolis, and one asking generally.

Now, Mitchell defended his answers, saying the rally was NOT a protest against police brutality, per se, or even in support of George Floyd, but more so geared toward MLK.

He told the Star Tribune, "I'd never been to D.C. The opportunity to go to D.C., the opportunity to be around thousands and thousands of Black people; I just thought it was a good opportunity to be a part of something."

That's his side of the story, but Chauvin's defense will certainly see it differently -- that Mitchell was an activist who had very clear bias when he became a juror.

Remember ... Mitchell has been very outspoken since the all-guilty verdict came in -- a verdict he says that he and his fellow jurors reached fairly easily ... once they sorted through some legal jargon in the instructions. He also said there was no pressure to vote guilty.

Derek Chauvin's attorney says he deserves a new trial after the former Minneapolis police officer got convicted for murdering George Floyd.

Chauvin's attorney, Eric Nelson, filed legal docs Tuesday asking for the jury verdict in his murder trial to be thrown out, claiming there were numerous errors pertaining to the jury and prosecution.

In the docs, obtained by TMZ, Chauvin's defense claims he didn't get a fair shake ... alleging the court abused its discretion by disagreeing with defense requests to sequester the jury and change venue.

As we reported ... the judge presiding over Chauvin's murder trial said Rep. Maxine Waters may have given Chauvin additional arguments to make on appeal. Remember, the congresswoman from California had said protesters were banking on a guilty verdict. She encouraged people to take to the streets and get more confrontational if that didn't happen.

Of course, some took that as an incitement of violence. Chauvin's attorney brought up Waters' remarks after closing arguments and said her comments could have possibly influenced the jury.

Nelson had asked for a mistrial but Judge Cahill didn't bite ... but the judge did say Waters opened the door for Chauvin to appeal the verdict. The judge told Nelson he had faith jurors followed his directive to avoid the news and talk of the case.

Chauvin's defense claims the jury should have been sequestered or at least warned to avoid all media related to the case. Nelson claims jurors could have felt intimidated.

Chauvin, who pressed his knee on George Floyd's neck for more than 9 minutes back on May 25, 2020, was found guilty on all 3 counts, including 2nd-degree murder.

The maximum penalty for 2nd-degree unintentional murder is 40 years in prison. Chauvin, who will be sentenced in June, remains in custody.

A woman called a Latino cop a "murderer" over and over during a traffic stop -- seemingly afraid for her life ... until she spewed the racist venom she really wanted to get off her chest.

Check out this wild video showing a Los Angeles County Sheriff's Deputy pulling a lady over in San Dimas last month, only to be insulted to his face repeatedly with one final sprinkle of racism for good measure. It's insane.

The guy has his body cam rolling, and right out the gate ... the woman is recording him as well with her phone, demanding to know why she was pulled over and insisting she'd done nothing wrong.

She's pretty hostile while the deputy, who is Hispanic, keeps his cool ... telling her he pulled her over for using her phone while driving. She says she did that because she wanted to capture any bad behavior -- but he points out you can't do that while driving.

Eventually, the woman asks him to get his supervisor on the scene over, which he did, but the deputy still calmly handed her a ticket. Once it was clear she wasn't getting off the hook, she really went off, calling the deputy a "Mexican racist" and then proceeding to tell him that he'll never be white and that he'll always be Mexican.

Basically, she tried taking cover under the police brutality blanket ... but really just seemed to hate the fact she was getting pulled over by a Latino cop, showing her true colors in the end.

The 6-year-old student from Florida who took a paddling -- with her mom watching -- is still shaken up from the incident ... and is getting professional help.

Brent Probinsky, the family's lawyer, tells TMZ that the girl's mother calls him twice a day with distress about the school beating that happened on April 13 ... telling him the kid can't sleep, cries constantly and feels generally terrorized by what happened.

As you can imagine, we're told her parents are also overcome with emotion ... especially the mom, whom Probinsky tells us is riddled with guilt from watching it all unfold. We're told the family now has a therapist ... and their first appointment should be this week.

BTW, the attorney shed some light on why the mom just stood by instead of stepping in -- he says she and her husband are undocumented immigrants from Mexico, and she was afraid she'd get deported if she reported it. You can see her hesitation first-hand in new video that we've obtained, showing the principal take an authoritative tone right from the jump.

Luckily, the mom reported it anyway ... and now it's being handled by authorities. Probinsky says the case is being reviewed by the state attorney's office, as well as the school district and the Florida Dept. of Education. Probinsky insists this was aggravated battery -- he's pushing for officials to strip the principal and her clerk of their education licenses ... so they can't teach in Florida ever again.

Caitlyn Jenner's take on banning trans girls from competing in girls' sports is unfounded and unjust ... so says Dr. Veronica Ivy whose view is the polar opposite.

Veronica, a trans activist, athlete and associate professor of philosophy at the College of Charleston, appeared Monday on "TMZ Live" and said there's no evidence trans girls perform better in sports than cisgender girls.

Dr. Ivy says the whole thing about biologically-born boys having a competitive advantage over biologically-born girls has been disproven ... she says there is no evidence normal testosterone levels have any impact on performance.

The Doc does say there is undeniably a difference in performance between biologically-born boys and girls in the world of sports, but she says the reason is unknown ... it's either biological, sociological or a combination of both. She goes on to say the data that's available actually doesn't show trans girls have any real advantage over cisgender girls, but until there's proof to the contrary the default should be inclusion rather than exclusion.

Dr. Ivy points out, Caitlyn had a different take last year ... when she told the Outsports podcast "The Trans Sporter Room," "I think every trans person, if they’re into athletics, should have an opportunity to compete and to improve themselves."

Michael Flynn either forgot the words to the Pledge of Allegiance, or he's a master at working for the crowd with MC call-backs ... and a lot of people think it's the former.

President Trump's former National Security Advisor -- and a retired U.S. Army lieutenant general, no less -- showed up Sunday at a pro-Trump rally down in South Carolina ... an event called "Bikers for Trump" which was held at the HonkyTonk Saloon.

At one point, Mike got on stage and led the audience in reciting the pledge ... and he kinda made a big show about it too, which made his weird silence look even worse.

Check it out ... Flynn starts out strong with the memorable words, but once he got past the initial sentence -- he seemed to have gotten his tongue-tied on the exact phrasing, and stopped talking altogether. Luckily, the crowd knew the rest ... and they finished it out.

MF hopped back in at "under God, indivisible." Unclear if he truly forgot -- or if he was doing that for dramatic effect ... but in any case, the pro-Trumpers didn't really mind. They gave him a big round of applause afterward, and it looked like they appreciated the gesture.

Of course, Twitter was having a field day with the awkward moment ... with many cracking jokes at Flynn's expense, saying a lot of guys from Putin's inner circle tend to have trouble with the pledge.

He was also accused of being a traitor -- which harkens back to his early tenure in the Trump WH ... when he was found to have been feeding intel to Russian operatives during the transition, something he lied about to Mike Pence (and the FBI) and ultimately got convicted for amid Robert Mueller's Russia probe.

A boat carrying dozens of people capsized in San Diego, killing 2 and injuring several more -- but it's clear the vessel did more than just flip over ... it was utterly destroyed.

The wreckage happened Sunday off the shores of Point Loma, a peninsula jutting out from SD's mainland. It's unclear what caused the boat -- which was reportedly carrying 25 people total -- to tip ... but once it did, emergency crews were called out to assist.

According to local reports, two people were pronounced dead at the scene ... while the 23 others were transported to area hospitals, with some requiring CPR on the spot.

However, somebody posted footage of the aftermath ... and it appears the boat got torn to pieces in the accident, with people onboard being washed ashore -- not to mention all the debris floating in the water as well. In the video, you hear someone say the boat "blew up."

The severity of the injuries isn't entirely known at this point, but officials have said different people were taken to different hospitals.

A search and rescue mission is underway at the moment to see if there's anybody else still in the water -- and an investigation will ultimately be headed up by the feds, as this appears to have happened in their jurisdiction.

Some things you never forget, even if you're losing your memory -- just ask an elderly Tennessee couple who broke out of an assisted living facility ... using Morse code.

A husband and wife -- each of whom reportedly suffer from either dementia or Alzheimer's -- were able to successfully escape from a secure memory unit in March out in the city of Lebanon ... all 'cause the hubby somehow was able to conjure his military experience.

According to the Tennessean, the guy would listen in on staffers as they punched in the security key for the front doors ... and he managed to figure out the exact combo using his trained Morse code ear. It appears they hatched a plan together and walked out on a Tuesday ... having gone undetected and unaccounted for about 30 minutes or so.

The paper says somebody found them walking down the street about a few blocks away -- and they were eventually returned to the facility in one piece. Still ... a helluva scheme!

Now, the facility -- known simply as Elmcroft -- didn't walk away from this without punishment. The Tennessean reports they got dinged by the state with a fine ... but it wasn't a whole lot. Just a couple thousand bucks for screwing the pooch here -- this coulda gone south fast.

They told state regulators that they'd make sure this doesn't happen again by checking in more frequently on their guests, and by changing the security keys early and often.

An elementary school principal went full 19th-century headmaster on a 6-year-old student -- paddling her a few times ... all while the mom recorded it.

This is coming out of Clewiston, FL ... where Central Elementary School Principal Melissa Carter and her clerk, Cecilia Self, were captured on video bending a little girl over and giving her a few whacks with an old-school paddle ... all in front of the kid's mom, who filmed it.

The student's mother says she was called to the school recently, with a claim that her daughter had damaged a school computer ... with a repair cost of nothing more than $50.

The mom says she was told by the school that her kid would be getting paddled as punishment, with her and a "deputy" present ... but says she didn't understand the process as it was being explained to her, as she doesn't speak much English.

Anyway, when the mom showed up to pay the fee and get her daughter ... she says she was led to a room where Carter and Self were present, along with her child. No law enforcement deputy was in sight. Before she knew it, Carter was meting out a beating.

The mom, who hasn't been ID'd for privacy, insists she didn't step in because she felt she would get in trouble ... and figured the only thing she could do was to document it to expose the abuse. So, that's what she did ... secretly filming the encounter and standing by.

The mom justifies her action -- or a lack thereof -- by saying she felt she needed to "sacrifice" her daughter to blow the lid on what was going on there.

Billie Eilish might as well be a human butterfly -- because she's undergone a metamorphosis for the cover of British Vogue ... and looks absolutely incredible for the final product.

The pop star shed her green wig and baggy sweaters and swapped them for something a little more skimpy and steamy for the upcoming June issue ... and it's just about the most jaw-dropping thing we've seen in a good while.

BE looks like a pinup model from the '20s and/or '50s -- and yes, there are big-time echoes of Marilyn Monroe here ... at least in our eyes. Indeed, she's achieved bombshell status.

Now, we've seen Billie without the green hair of late and even without the loose clothing too -- but we haven't ever seen her quite like this ... where she's showing off her physique for a magazine shoot. There's something to be said there too, which Billie did in her interview.

She talked about body image issues -- and not necessarily ones she had for her herself ... but ones the media placed on her as she was thrust into the spotlight over these past couple years. Billie posted a quote of hers from the Vogue issue, and she talks about the freak-out that some outlets had when Billie stepped out in anything other than her signature look.

Billie says, "Suddenly you’re a hypocrite if you want to show your skin, and you’re easy and you’re a slut and you’re a whore. If I am, then I’m proud." She adds, "Me and all the girls are hoes, and f*** it, y’know? Let’s turn it around and be empowered in that. Showing your body and showing your skin -- or not -- should not take any respect away from you"

In other words ... her message seems to be, do whatever the hell you want, and look however the hell you want, regardless of what others expect. Good advice right there.

Several protesters near the Kentucky Derby were arrested Saturday as they protested the killing of Breonna Taylor ... but as for why they got arrested -- well the cops won't say.

Around 50 protesters marched by the entrance of Churchill Downs with signs that read, "We haven't forgotten Breonna."

The protesters ended up at La Chasse restaurant, and suddenly a man dining on the patio pulled out a gun and trained it on the group. There's no evidence from the video that the man was threatened.

Kentucky is an open carry state, so when cops came he was in the clear. But then, there was a foot chase and cops corralled 3 protesters and arrested them.

We contacted the Louisville PD and asked why the protesters were arrested. They wouldn't say but told us to file a public records request and even then they might not tell us. Sheesh.

As you know, none of the cops have been charged for Breonna's death and her family is especially upset that the grand jury proceeding was a sham. Attorney General Daniel Cameron told the media his office had instructed grand jurors on possible homicide charges when grand jurors said they had not been so instructed.

We don't post jokes on TMZ, but this one is so frickin' hilarious we made an exception.

Bill Maher was on his game per usual Friday night, and he riffed on a story about a school kid's science project designed to answer the question ... "Does your cat's butthole really touch all the surfaces in your home?"

Kaeden Griffin, a 6th grader from Tennessee, and his mom -- who was homeschooling the boy -- decided to crack the case by putting red lipstick on the buttholes of their 2 felines. The cats went here and there in the house and mother and son chronicled their results.

In case you're wondering ... long and medium-haired cats made no butthole contact with soft or hard surfaces, but the buttholes of short-haired cats never touched hard services. Sounds like a smear campaign if you ask us.

Anyway ... Bill's take on 'Real Time' is just hysterical. Watch and laugh your ass off.