You Might Want to Rethink

Rihanna is livid at the NFL and CBS ... claiming the league and the network had no right to make it look like she was part of the Ravens/Steelers Thursday night pre-game show ... and had no right to single her out when it was scrapped.

Sources connected with Rihanna tell TMZ ... the singer was pissed when someone sent her the joint NFL/CBS press release last week, with the headline, "CBS & NFL Network 'Run This Town' for Thursday Night Football Open with Music Featuring Rihanna & Narration by Don Cheadle."

In fact Rihanna never did anything special for the game ... all CBS/NFL did was license a Jay Z song that featured Rihanna.

Rihanna's rep tells TMZ, "Due to the misuse and misrepresentation of Rihanna's name and participation in connection to CBS TNF, CBS was not allowed to license and utilize the song 'Run This Town.' Roc Nation made the decision to not grant the song’s usage."

Translation: Because her name was used to promote the show, she felt she then had the right to block the production.

Rihanna also made it clear on social media Tuesday ... she is also angry that CBS yanked the production and insinuated it was because she was the victim of domestic violence.

CBS's plan was to use the Jay Z song along with a voiceover by Don Cheadle that would be customized for each match up -- but CBS said today the song will NOT be used.

Dwight Howard might be color blind -- 'cause officials in Florida say he ran 10 RED LIGHTS in 2-and-a-half years -- and now his license has been suspended ... TMZ Sports has learned.

According to official records, the NBA superstar was captured by those red light cameras in Orange County, FL over and over again ... starting in 2012, when he was busted 9 times in 10 months.

Then, after a year-and-a-half without a violation, Howard struck again in 2014 -- blowing through another red light on July 1st ... his 10th overall infraction.

Officials from the Orange County Clerk of Courts tell us ... Howard's license can be reinstated if he pays a $285 fine.

We're guessing he can afford it.

7:53 AM PT -- CBS released a statement saying they will NOT use Rihanna's performance going forward, saying, "Beginning this Thursday, we will be moving in a different direction with some elements of our Thursday Night Football open. We will be using our newly created Thursday Night Football theme music to open our game broadcast."

It took a few days, but Rihanna is finally lashing out about CBS' decision to yank her musical opening from "Thursday Night Football" last week and air it this week instead ... and let's just say she's not happy.

With the Ray Rice scandal still fresh, and the Ravens set to play the Steelers, CBS opted not to run a taped musical segment featuring Rihanna ... seeing as she had been the victim of high-profile domestic violence.

But with the segment now set to air this week, Rihanna took to Twitter to blast CBS, writing, "CBS you pulled my song last week, now you wanna slide it back in this Thursday? NO, F*** you! Y'all are sad for penalizing me for this."

As for what she means by "penalizing" ... it's pretty clear she feels CBS will not allow her to move on from getting beaten by Chris Brown 5 years ago.

She followed that up by writing, "The audacity ..."

Rihanna was in Barbados Monday ... looking extremely good.

Floyd "Money" Mayweather did not share A PENNY of the $32 MILLION he earned Saturday night with the waitress who served him $25,000 worth of booze and chicken wings ... TMZ has learned.

Nik Nguyen tells TMZ ... she thought she'd hit the jackpot when Floyd walked into Rehab at the Hard Rock Sunday afternoon with around 150 people. Floyd and crew ordered:

5 bottles of Patron - $2,375
3 Grey Goose - $1,425
6 bottles of Ciroc - $2,850
20 bottles of Luc Belaire Rose champagne - $11,500
1 6-liter bottle of Luc Belaire Rose - $6,500
200 chicken wings - $600
1 fruit platter - $55

TOTAL BILL: $25,305.

Nguyen tells us ... she went the extra mile to provide Floyd and company with excellent service. Not surprisingly ... the Hard Rock ended up comping Floyd, and he showed his gratitude by leaving Nguyen ... chicken bones, empty bottles and that's it.

She says it's especially maddening because some of the people in Floyd's entourage -- including Jamie Foxx -- were throwing money at random girls who were twerking on stage.

Nguyen says she's been struggling with 2 jobs and the recent death of her father ... but she didn't walk walk away empty-handed. She says security guards felt so sorry for her they scooped up a few bucks the twerkers left behind and gave it to her.

We've called Floyd's team ... so far, no comment.

Kanye West says he's not apologizing for refusing to perform until a wheelchair-bound concertgoer stood up this weekend during his concert ... because the rapper believes HE was the victim.

Yeezus attempted to explain himself during one of his signature rants Sunday night in Brisbane, Australia ... but instead, he started attacking Matt Lauer.

Kanye says people need to lay off of him ... because he's a "married, Christian man."

Miley Cyrus already offended boomers across the country with her Beatles cover ... now, she's going a step further with a Led Zeppelin/Joan Baez classic -- and people are pissed.

Cyrus recorded "Babe I'm Gonna Leave You" -- re-naming it "Baby, I'm Gonna Leave You" -- and posted it on Soundcloud Friday. Judging by the comments ... not well received.

Some highlights:

-- "Further proof that Gene Simmons was right - rock is finally dead."

-- "Thank you for destroying my favorite Zeppelin song."

-- "When my dog farts it sounds better than this."

George Clooney's potential wedding has paparazzi swarming around a London church, but church leaders swear on their boss ... it ain't going down there.

The Chelsea Old Town Hall finally had to address the buzz about a possible London ceremony -- posting a note on it's door, writing ... "We are not conducting the wedding of Mr. Clooney at this office today (Friday 12 September) and a film crew and press photographers would only cause possible disruption to other couples getting married on this day."

Clooney has said he plans to marry his fiancee, Amal Alamuddin in Italy, but rumors persist they will also do it in London ... where she lives.

Iggy Azalea allegedly recorded a sex tape that could make her millions upon millions -- according to a Hollywood porn boss, but Iggy tells TMZ she can't cash in on the vid ... because it's NOT her!

Vivid honcho Steven Hirsch tells us he has seen some footage which he says appears to be Iggy with an ex-boyfriend -- and from the little he's seen ... he's sure it could easily top Kim Kardashian's legendary sex tape in sales.

Hirsch says he's already reached out to the 24-year-old "Booty" rapper to open negotiations on what could be a multi-million dollar deal -- but the problem is Iggy's camp says Hirsch's eyes are playing tricks on him. They tell us the I-G-G-Y is not the chick on vid doing the dirty ... and they're ready to sue over the alleged footage.

Of course, without Iggy signing off on it ... the vid can't be legally released. It also means she won't collect years and years of mailbox money ... like Ray J still does.

Floyd Mayweather claims he hadn't seen the new elevator footage of Ray Rice before he went after the NFL for not sticking by their 2 game suspension ... and now he's apologizing to the league.

"I was just getting word from people that there was a video out there. I didn't know because I'm training for a fight," Mayweather said.

"If I offended anyone, I apologize."

Just one problem ... when he made his original comments, Floyd said he HAD seen the video.

Hmmm.

Mayweather had ripped the NFL for changing Rice's 2-game suspension to an indefinite one once the new video came to light. He claimed the league should have stuck to it's original ruling.

Besides the comments about the NFL, Mayweather had also said that Ray was not the worst wife-beater in the country ... his incident just happened to be caught on tape.

Apollo Nida is not a prisoner, so now he's a wanted man ... TMZ has learned.

TMZ reported Wednesday AM ... Nida was on his way to report for his 8-year prison sentence for money laundering and check fraud.

But apparently he got cold feet ... because we're told he pulled up to the home of his wife, "Real Housewives of Atlanta" star Phaedra Parks and went nuts because Phaedra refused to put money in his prison account while he was locked up. She also refused to bring their kids to prison to visit him and that caused him to lose it.

We're told Nida forced his way inside and started screaming at Phaedra, "What the f*** is the matter with you," adding, "I don't give a f*** about the police, call them, I dare you."

An eyewitness tells TMZ ... he was demanding property and went inside the master bedroom and starting putting stuff in a big bag.

Fortunately for Bravo ... we're told RHOA cameras were rolling and got the whole thing.

"Shahs of Sunset" star Mercedes Javid sees nothing wrong with shamelessly washing her car for a photo op ... declaring, "F*** the drought!"

Javid was out Tuesday night at Bootsy Bellows in West Hollywood and she's clearly wasted. When our photog asked about the car wash pics, her reasoning was compelling, we say sarcastically.

Be sure to watch til the very end if you want to see more of MJ than perhaps should be allowed.

Too soon? Apparently not ... according to Gilbert Gottfried who finally decided to put Ray Rice in the comedy crosshairs.

"Obviously Ray Rice misunderstood me when I said 'She's hot, you should definitely hit that!'" ... Gilbert tweeted.

Cracking jokes on timely news stories is kinda Gilbert's thing -- and he also knows there can be consequences ... like when he was fired from his job as the voice of the AFLAC duck back in 2011 after joking about the tsunami in Japan.

Floyd Mayweather says Ray Rice is far from the WORST of the domestic abusers in America -- only problem is that Ray got caught on video.

Mayweather -- who spent time in jail for beating up his baby mama a few years ago -- spoke to Fight Hub TV and said he's pulling for Rice ... "I wish something positive out of the situation."

And that's when Floyd tried to explain why Ray's attack wasn't that bad compared to other wife-beaters -- "[There are] a lot worse things that go on in other people's households also ... it's just not caught on video."

There's more ... when asked about his own domestic abuse case -- Mayweather used the O.J. Simpson defense to try to explain why he was wrongly convicted a few years ago.

"I'm pretty sure that with my situation, no bumps, no bruises, no nothing ... with OJ and Nicole, you seen pictures. With Chris Brown and Rihanna, you seen pictures. With Ochocinco and Evelyn, you seen pictures."

Justin Bieber ripped off all his clothes, except for his Calvin Klein boxers, during Tuesday night's "Fashion Rocks" event in Brooklyn -- but flashing his bod and ego nearly backfired.

Biebs was on stage with model Lara Stone to introduce Rita Ora, when he decided to strip down. You can hear boos start to rain down at first, but the more naked he got ... the more the screaming chicks started to win out.

Justin tweeted after the show, "Grandma always said kill 'em with kindness...and then strip on live national tv. Lol."

Thanks for nothing, Granny.

Roger Goodell is now doing somersaults to explain why he didn't simply go to the casino and ask for a copy of the Ray Rice elevator video.

Goodell told CBS News, he knew a tape existed and went to law enforcement and asked for a copy but the request was rejected.

So why didn't he then simply go to directly to the source -- the Revel Casino?

Goodell said, "I don't know how TMZ or any other website gets their info. We are particularly reliant on law enforcement, that's the most reliable, the most credible. We don't seek to get that information from sources who are not credible."

THIS MAKES NO SENSE. The police got the tape from the casino, so the police video CANNOT be more credible than the source.

TMZ Sports broke the story ... casino employees told us if the NFL would have requested the video they would have gladly provided it, but no one asked.

An NFL source told TMZ, Tuesday afternoon ... Goodell felt it would be wrong to "go around" law enforcement by contacting the casino and looking at the tape. But we're told all law enforcement told Goodell is they're not giving him the tape -- not that him looking at the tape would interfere with their investigation. Fact is ... it wouldn't.

This is the woman who was targeted by the FBI ... for allegedly making death threats against Kris Jenner and her family.

The woman -- Christina Bankston -- was at the Four Seasons hotel in Bev Hills Friday when FBI agents armed with a search warrant broke into her room and confiscated her computer, an iPad and other electronics.

Our sources say Bankston -- who lives in the San Francisco area -- is the woman who was calling Kris up to 300 times a day. She would also call the media, including TMZ, posing as Kris.

The video was taken on a roller coaster at Disneyland last week. You hear Bankston say repeatedly how much she loves Kris.