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The bizarre case of the tiger on the loose in Houston has gotten even stranger, as the man police arrested for the incident denies being the owner ... and nobody seems to know where the tiger is.

Cops arrested Victor Hugo Cuevas Monday for evading police after officers say he was the guy seen on video Sunday wrangling the tiger that got loose in a Houston suburb and nearly shot by a neighbor.

Police say Cuevas loaded the big cat into a white SUV and drove off as officers arrived, but his attorney Michael Elliott addressed reporters after his client bonded out and says Cuevas is being accused of doing things he didn't do.

The lawyer suggests Houston PD's made some false assumptions, and most significantly -- he says the tiger does not belong to Cuevas and denies knowing the animal's whereabouts.

The tiger is a 9-month-old male named India, and Cuevas' lawyer says ... "We are both very anxious and looking forward to doing everything we can do to find India. We want to find India."

BTW -- Cuevas bonded out for his most recent arrest after previously being out on $50,000 bond in neighboring Fort Bend County on a murder charge ... so there's that.

As we reported ... 'Tiger King' star Carole Baskin put Texas Senators Ted Cruz and John Cornyn on blast earlier this week for allowing such a situation to unfold in the state in the first place.

A classic childhood show from Nickelodeon's heyday is getting fresh blood in the form of a reboot, and the guy who hosted it has some nuggets of gold for us before cameras roll.

We talked to Kirk Fogg Wednesday in L.A. about the big news ... namely, that "Legends of the Hidden Temple" is being revived -- only this time, it'll be made for adults instead of kids. And, of course, because of that, it ain't gonna be airing on Nick ... but rather The CW.

You might recall ... Kirk headed up hosting duties when 'Legends' originally ran for 3 seasons in the mid-'90s. So, with that in mind, we had to ask the man himself if he was coming back to pick up the baton again. Check out his answer ... he didn't say no!

It doesn't sound like he'll necessarily be hosting this new version, but he says he's in talks with the network and aiming to be involved in some capacity.

Now, for the good stuff ... like what the arena will look like. Kirk might have spilled more than he's allowed to by revealing it's gonna be WAY bigger than the OG one pre-teens were running back in the day -- but still faithful to Olmec's original labyrinths.

And, as far as potential contestants ... well, our photog actually pitched an idea Kirk was digging. The failed contenders from once upon a time could get a redo!

Chrissy Teigen is owning up to her past abusive behavior toward Courtney Stodden -- publicly apologizing for years of online bullying, and promising to be better.

Chrissy, who's back on Twitter again, issued a heartfelt mea culpa on the platform Wednesday ... this, after Courtney revealed Chrissy used to DM back in the day telling Courtney to kill themselves, and that was on top of her ugly public tweets.

Chrissy now says ... "Not a lot of people are lucky enough to be held accountable for all their past bulls**t in front of the entire world. I’m mortified and sad at who I used to be. I was an insecure, attention seeking troll. I am ashamed and completely embarrassed at my behavior."

She adds that as bad as she feels now, it's nothing compared to how she must've made Courtney feel all those years.

Chrissy goes on to explain that she's tried connecting with Courtney privately, but to no avail ... so she says, "I’m so sorry, Courtney. I hope you can heal now knowing how deeply sorry I am."

It's interesting, CT ends her apology by also saying sorry to her fans -- for letting them down -- so she's covering all bases here.

You'll recall, Courtney told us they considered Chrissy a hypocrite when she took a break from Twitter because of all the negativity ... saying that didn't seem to bother her all those years ago when she was jumping down Courtney's digital throat.

Chrissy didn't respond back then, but it looks like Courtney's latest reminder of the abuse was one too many to ignore.

A Florida fisherman is lucky to be alive today ... 'cause the guy was nearly attacked by a giant alligator during an outing in the Everglades last weekend -- and the terrifying scene was all caught on video!!

The drama unfolded on Saturday -- when 22-year-old Tommy Lee was hunting for some tarpon on a large body of water's shoreline.

You can see in the footage ... the dude was minding his own business casting his reel -- when suddenly, a big-ass gator head emerged from the water!!!

Lee knew right away he needed to be alert -- his GoPro camera captured him saying, "You got to be careful here" -- and that's when the scariness began.

The gator climbed out of the water and took off after the guy ... and when it got within feet of Lee, he accidentally fell backward!!

Fortunately, the 11-foot-long animal stopped charging ... and after an intense standoff, it eventually retreated.

Lee was clearly excited to leave the area without gator teeth in his body ... saying on camera, "And I am outta here. Screw that!"

A white comedian used the cloak of comedy to spew incredibly racist rhetoric against another comedian -- the guy who introduced him on stage -- without batting an eyelash.

Tony Hinchcliffe -- famous for writing for the 'Comedy Central Roast' series and working on Joe Rogan's podcast -- did a set last week in Austin, where fellow comic Peng Dang (who is of Chinese descent) introduced him at Big Laugh Comedy.

Dang was more than courteous in the intro, telling the crowd to "give it up for the one and only, Tony Hinchcliffe" ... but as soon as Tony grabbed the mic, he went right into excoriating Dang -- calling him a "filthy little f***ing c****" and going on to mock his accent.

The racism wasn't lost on Dang. He posted the clip and wrote, "Last week in Austin, I got to bring up Tony Hinchcliffe. This is what he said. Happy Asian (AAPI) Heritage Month!"

Now, one could argue Hinchcliffe is famously known as an insult comic -- he is -- and that this is right up his alley ... and he didn't mean anything by it. Even if true, times have changed -- so these types of jokes aren't gonna fly anymore, especially right now when violence against Asians is spiking nationwide. Frankly, these jokes are cheap and mean.

Tony hasn't responded to this yet -- but the guy's got shows coming up in Madison, WI this week ... and he runs a weekly podcast, so maybe he'll address it some time then.

Sarah Palin has emerged from the Alaskan shadows to do something very on-brand -- mocking mask-wearing inside an airport ... treating it like a giant joke.

The former Alaskan Governor, and one-time running mate to John McCain, posted a video to her social media ... telling her followers she was at LAX, and that she was "going rogue" by having her mask down while talking to the camera.

She seemed pretty giddy about it ... and was clearly being sarcastic as she joked about being "outside," meaning down here in the States outside her of Alaskan utopia -- where she might be able to get away with not wearing a mask in public these days.

Sarah has demonstrated she does NOT like face coverings ... and now that we're finally turning a corner in the pandemic, she seems to think it's cool to poke fun at it when in reality -- they're still necessary, especially at a place like LAX.

Airports are the key to unlocking the ability to go places, like vacations and business travel. They're also a little dicey because people are in such close proximity to each other, both in the terminal and on the plane. So in many ways, it's where mask-wearing makes the most sense.

Novak Djokovic lost his cool on the court in a BIG way Tuesday ... going off on an umpire in an epic meltdown -- and the entire tantrum was captured on video.

It all went down at the Italian Open in Rome, when Djokovic got upset with an umpire for letting his match with Taylor Fritz go on despite heavy rain.

In video from the court, Djokovic can be heard exploding on the ump ... "How much more do you want to play?!"

Novak was fuming over the clay court's conditions under the falling rain ... and when the ump responded, "I want to check the court," Djokovic continued to yell.

"I asked you three times!" the world's #1-ranked tennis player said. "You're not checking anything!"

The two exchanged more words ... before Djokovic ultimately walked off the court and sought cover in the tunnel area.

The match was eventually suspended due to the weather a few minutes later.

Of course, this is far from Djokovic's first outburst on the court ... just three months ago at the Australian Open, he demolished his racket after botching a play.

And, just a few months before that, he was DQ'ed from the U.S. Open for angrily hitting a ball that struck a lineswoman in the head.

Golden State Warriors wing Kent Bazemore is waving the white flag in his public beef with Bradley Beal ... saying his comment about the Wizards superstar's injury wasn't supposed to start a massive social media war.

Bazemore had referenced Beal's recent hammy injury while praising Stephen Curry's quest for the scoring title earlier this week ... saying, "We got guys hurting hamstrings to keep up."

Beal -- who's currently second in the scoring race behind Curry -- UNLEASHED on Bazemore for his comments, with the 27-year-old calling the Dubs role player a "straight lame" and other brutal jabs on Twitter.

It got so bad, even Beal's wife, Kamiah, got in on it ... saying, "I just don’t understand why someone who can’t even compete with my 2.5 year old son in basketball would fix his MOUF to say some trash ass s*** like he did."

Baze -- who averages 8 points, 3 rebounds and nearly 2 assists in his career -- was asked about the feud after the Warriors' 119-116 win over the Jazz on Monday ... and he claimed the fallout from his words "got out of hand."

"I guess you can’t joke anymore, but man, whatever," Bazemore told reporters. "I don’t know, man. I feel like I am a pretty light-hearted guy. I stay in my own lane."

"I don’t say things and ruffle feathers, but, hey, man, it's just ... if you want to know where my loyalty is, it's with SC30. Anybody out there chasing him is going to be tough, whatever."

He added ... "It kind of got out of hand. I haven’t checked my phone all day until after the game. It’s kind of blowing up. But I don’t get involved in crap, man."

No word on if Beal is buying Bazemore's clarification ... but don't hold your breath.

As for the scoring race, Steph currently has 31.9 points per game, while Beal has 31.4 ... and the regular season ends in 5 days.

Simon Cowell insists he's not living dangerously by getting back on an electric bicycle less than a year after shattering his spine while riding one ... 'cause he's toned down his horsepower.

The "America's Got Talent" judge and music exec broke down the differences for us after he was spotted scooting around on a new bike, but one that still had an electric motor attached.

It looks like risky business, but Simon explains he wasn't concerned. Check out why this new ride of his isn't anywhere near as crash-prone as the one he crashed with last summer.

The long and short of it is ... one of them was basically a motorcycle with pedals, and the other is a lot more human-friendly and manageable.

SC actually tells us a pretty hilarious anecdote about a magazine he picked up recently that served as a painful reminder of the brutal injury he endured.

Speaking of that injury ... Simon has healed very nicely since August, which was pretty obvious from his vacation to Barbados over the holidays -- where he was spotted cruising around on a jet ski, something he tells us his doctor did NOT want to see happen.

Tough luck for the doc -- Simon likes living on the edge, but at least he's taking a much wiser, sensible approach now.

Whoever let their tiger out and about on the streets of a Houston neighborhood this weekend is certainly no Joe Exotic, but they were trying to be ... and almost got the thing killed.

Check out this wild scene that unfolded Sunday in the burb of Memorial, where a neighbor -- who is allegedly an off-duty sheriff's deputy -- came face-to-face with the striped beast. The guy had his gun drawn as he tried yelling at it to stop, but it continued creeping toward him.

The supposed owner tells the cop not to shoot it and that he'll get the animal, which he successfully did in the end without any bullets flying. You can even see the tiger has a collar on, and seems pretty comfortable when the human wrangles it in on their front yard.

At this point, there's really not a whole lot of context other than this tiger appears to have been somebody's pet in one of the surrounding houses ... and it escaped somehow.

Of course, 911 was called over this ... but word is once they arrived, the tiger had already been stashed into a vehicle and driven away. It's unclear if anybody was charged yet -- but the police are certainly aware of it.

It's illegal to own exotic pets like this in the City of Houston, but you can, apparently, have a tiger in the surrounding unincorporated Harris County, assuming you have all the right paperwork and a boatload of insurance.

Considering this one was nowhere to be found when cops showed up, something tells us it wasn't meant to be there in the first place.

Not to milk this, but there's one very famous cow roaming the fields in India ... named after Kim Kardashian and rescued by PETA, just in time for Mother's Day.

The animal rights org said it rescued the "drop-dead gorgeous" momma cow with "striking eyes and long, dark eyelashes" ... and named it after Kim, "to thank the mother of four for showing compassion to mums of all species by promoting a dairy-free diet to her more than 200 million followers."

As you know ... Kim's been pretty vocal lately about going on a mostly plant-based diet ... which might explain her abs.

When someone asked her back in February 2020 about specifically what she eats day in and day out, Kim said "I eat mostly plant-based. No meat anymore. Oatmeal and vegan sausage for breakfast, vegan tacos are my fave for lunch! Salads are good too!"

PETA says it backed a sanctuary in India that ultimately won custody of the cow, which was believed to have been exploited for dairy after the former owner was caught abusing the cow on the street.

The rescued cow's now living in her lush new sanctuary home, where she's, apparently, successfully dodging the paparazzi ... no shots of her in the wild yet. We're also told she's made 2 friends, Sonya and Meena.

Simon Cowell is getting back on the horse -- or, more accurately, back on the bike ... this after breaking his back on one of these damn things less than a year ago.

The 'AGT' host was spotted cruising along on another electric bicycle Sunday in Malibu with his girlfriend, Lauren Silverman, and his young son, Eric ... who all had bikes of their own. Interestingly, though, it was only Simon who seemed to be using a motorized version.

You can tell it's an electric bike by that little box stuck to the down tube of the frame -- they help propel the bicycle forward with more acceleration as you pedal, giving you a boost.

The fact Simon's once again riding one of these raises eyebrows at first glance. Of course, Simon practically shattered his spine on this exact type of model back in August ... when he was testing out a new electric bike of his, in none other than the courtyard of his own home.

If he almost got paralyzed from just that setting ... this one here -- out in public, along a windy bike bath with other riders zipping by -- is definitely a lot more dangerous, potentially. Still ... it looks like he's got the hang of it, but seeing this does make one worry a bit.

Simon went through a 6-hour emergency back surgery at the time ... and has undergone intensive rehab since then to get back on his feet. Welp, now he's back on his ass.

Greta Van Susteren is OUTRAGED people are supposedly swapping "Mother's Day" for a gender-neutral term to be PC -- but the truth is ... she might be fuming over nothing.

The ex-FOX News personality -- who's now anchoring another political show on Gray Television -- tweeted a bizarre sentiment Sunday, going after folks who have the audacity to say "Happy Birthing Person's Day" ... instead of saying "mother."

Greta writes, "To all those who reject the term “Mother’s Day” in favor of “birthing persons’ day” you have just slighted all the incredible mothers who adopted children."

So, on the face of it, she seems to be trying to one-up the easily-offended crowd with even more offense of her own -- but she's not the first right-leaning public figure to make a fuss over the term "birthing persons."

Sen. Ted Cruz also had something to say about it as well, but he was way more obnoxious.

In classic "YOU WON'T CANCEL THIS!!!" fashion ... Cruz posted an erased-out Mother's Day scribbling, and wrote in "birthing people's."

Here's the thing, though ... their indignation seems to be a big waste of energy.

For starters, hardly anyone actually says "Birthing People/Person's Day" -- at least not widely -- nor is it becoming a new norm. And, even if people do say it ... so what? Them choosing to say that doesn't prevent anyone else from saying "Mother's Day" -- and the same applies in reverse. No one's shaming anyone for saying "Mother," soooo ... to each their own?

This all seems to stem from Rep. Cori Bush using the term in a tweet this week while describing her pregnancy experience ... in which she claimed different doctors had encouraged her to abort her baby, and to just get pregnant again -- suggesting racism was at play.

Rather than listening to the substance of her remarks, it looks like some clung to the "birthing people" term ... and never looked back.

Elon Musk cast doubt on Dogecoin during 'SNL' -- but now, it seems his company is trying to take that back ... by sending a satellite to the moon ... funded exclusively by the cryptocurrency.

A company called Geometric Energy Corporation announced Sunday that they'll be launching an 88-lb cube to the moon sometime in early 2022 ... with the help of none other than SpaceX, Elon's pride and joy for space exploration. SpaceX confirmed the news, BTW.

They say this is gonna be the first-ever commercial lunar payload that's paid for entirely with Doge ... meaning, SpaceX is accepting the crypto from Geometric -- which will presumably fundraise/buy Dogecoin for this mission ... one they're calling DOGE-1 Mission to the Moon.

The cube -- which will be equipped with high-tech cameras/sensors to help obtain "lunar-spatial intelligence" upon touchdown -- is flying passengers aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket.

Elon hasn't commented on the momentous moment just yet -- but one of his SpaceX execs did. Tom Ochinero, the Vice President of Commercial Sales, says ... "This mission will demonstrate the application of cryptocurrency beyond Earth orbit and set the foundation for interplanetary commerce." He adds, "We're excited to launch DOGE-1 to the Moon!"

Two things about this -- one, it looks like Elon wasn't kidding in April when he said SpaceX would be sending an actual Dogecoin to the moon. Also, this appears to be major damage control after Elon agreed with Michael Che Saturday, saying Dogecoin was a "hustle."

That comment helped send the meme coin plummeting ... losing upwards of 37% of value in a matter of minutes. Now, it looks like they're trying to re-legitimize it once more.

Phylicia Rashad was strangely thrust into a conversation about Bill Cosby and his so-called "enablers" -- which the Internet was NOT putting up with ... especially on Mother's Day.

Twitter was celebrating their favorite TV moms Sunday, and Phylicia was right up there near the top of the list ... with many remembering and paying tribute to her starring role on "The Cosby Show" as Cliff's wife, Clair Huxtable. That is, until someone took the convo left.

A lady who goes by Lisa Talmadge rained on everyone's parade, tweeting a bizarre claim, and didn't even use Phylicia's proper name in making it ... or her TV character's name for that matter.

She wrote, "Claire Huxtable was an enabler of the longest and most prolific drug rape predator In US history, Bill Cosby. Everyone on set knew he was a sadistic predator. Everyone. 75 women drugged and raped by Cosby and he got away with it because of enablers."

For starters, it's CLAIR Huxtable. Second, Mrs. Huxtable is not a real person (she's fictional and only exists in the show). More importantly -- and as Twitter users furiously noted in response -- Phylicia isn't responsible for what Cosby was accused of, or convicted over.

As countless people pointed out, Phylicia wasn't his boss on the set ... if anything, she was more of an employee of his, and a co-worker -- nothing more. To suggest she knew what was going on behind the scenes -- something she herself has already denied -- is absurd.

Now, for the record, Phylicia has come to Cosby's defense ... most memorably in 2015 when the sexual assault allegations against him resurfaced, which she brushed off at the time as a group of people trying to tarnish the man's legacy, and a conviction of guilt in the media.

After Cosby was convicted of assaulting Andrea Constand and incarcerated over it ... Phylicia has somewhat softened her stance, but she still seems to equivocate at times. Bigger picture though ... she's supported "The Cosby Show" and has asked folks to compartmentalize.

It's Mother's Day again -- and if you thought Hollywood would skip a beat due to COVID, you're wrong ... because they laid it on thick for mama bear, just like years past.

Scores of celebs made sure to shout out that special lady in their lives on Sunday, posting heartfelt tributes for their moms ... while also posing for shots with them too. This year feels especially poignant, as we're finally turning a corner in the pandemic and are going strong.

Among the stars who shared the love ... Reese Witherspoon, Priyanka Chopra, DJ Khaled, Ellen DeGeneres, Michael Strahan, Lenny Kravitz, Gene Simmons, Drake, Usher, Usain Bolt, Jimmy Fallon, J Lo, Ryan Seacrest, Matthew McConaughey, Addison Rae, Mark Ruffalo, Amy Schumer, Elle Fanning, Sammy Hagar, Vince Neil, Lea Michele ... and VP Kamala Harris.

One post that was notably meaningful was Ryan Dorsey's ... who made sure to remember Naya Rivera, his late ex-wife and the mother of his own child, Josey, who died last year.

He wrote, "🖤❤️🖤We can’t say the word happy but we’ll say thank you for being a mother & giving me this sweet amazing boy.🖤❤️🖤#mothersday." Ryan threw up a photo of Naya and Josey sitting at a booth with what looks to be some ice cream in front of them.

As you know ... Naya drowned last year at Lake Piru in Ventura County, after taking Josey out on a boat ride, but somehow getting sucked under the water when trying to re-board.