You Might Want to Rethink

Nick Cannon says his eyes have been opened to the horribly anti-Semitic things he said, and he's offering an apology -- one that might have saved his 'Masked Singer' gig.

24 hours after Viacom cut all ties with Nick for anti-Semitic remarks he made on his podcast, he says, "First and foremost I extend my deepest and most sincere apologies to my Jewish sisters and brothers for the hurtful and divisive words that came out of my mouth during my interview with Richard Griffin."

He continued, "They reinforced the worst stereotypes of a proud and magnificent people and I feel ashamed of the uninformed and naive place that these words came from."

If you missed it, Nick defended Griffin -- aka Professor Griff, ex-Public Enemy member -- over comments he made in the late '80s about Jews spreading wickedness around the world.

On the podcast, Nick supported Griffin ... saying he couldn't be anti-Semitic because black people are the real Semites. He also said Griffin was speaking the truth, and repeated long-held -- going back to Hitler -- stereotypes about Jews controlling banks and much of the world's wealth.

While he got tons of backlash online -- in addition to the Viacom axing -- Nick says several rabbis, including Rabbi Abraham Cooper from the Simon Wiesenthal Center, have also tried to educate him. As he put it on social media ... "I have had at least a minor history lesson over the past few days and to say that it is eye-opening would be a vast understatement."

Late Wednesday, FOX -- home of "The Masked Singer" -- said it had been in talks with Nick regarding the podcast and felt he was "clear and remorseful that his words were wrong and lacked both understanding and context, and inadvertently promoted hate." The network said, based on that convo, it would move forward with him.

Cannon also vowed he is now committed to strengthening the bond between black and Jewish cultures going forward. He says he's also taken down the Professor Griff episode of his podcast.

It's interesting ... Viacom said Nick was unwilling to apologize when they contacted him about his podcast comments and, in fact, said that was a big part of why they were cutting ties.

It's unclear, at this point, if his mea culpa will change anything for Viacom. Nick had demanded the company give him ownership of his show, 'Wild 'N Out.'

Legendary trainer Bob Baffert has just been SUSPENDED by the Arkansas Racing Commission ... after 2 of his horses tested positive for a banned substance.

Of course, Baffert is a Hall of Famer in the sport ... and his horses have brought home the Triple Crown in 2015 (American Pharoah) and 2018 (Justify).

The 67-year-old was just hit with a 15-day suspension by the racing org. on Wednesday ... after 2 of his horses tested positive for lidocaine, a banned numbing agent.

Both horses had just won races at Oaklawn Park recently ... and the owners now have to forfeit their prize money.

Charlatan -- which won a division of the Arkansas Derby back in May -- earned $300,000 in prize money ... and Gamine's owner received a $36,000 check after placing 1st in another race earlier that day.

Baffert argued that the banned substance was transferred to the horses by accident ... after an assistant trainer applied a medical patch to his back after breaking his pelvis.

This is NOT good ...

Hundreds of people ignored social distancing guidelines and partied their asses off at Devin White's "Trail Ride" charity event over the weekend ... and video of the scene is alarming.

The Tampa Bay Bucs linebacker -- despite surging COVID-19 cases in Louisiana -- decided to press forward with his 2nd annual "Trail Ride" event in Cotton Valley on Saturday.

The problem? Hundreds -- if not thousands -- of people attended ... and even though White said he'd urge hand-washing, mask-wearing and social distancing, it's clear those precautions weren't followed seriously throughout the evening.

Check out footage from the event ... partygoers can be seen mask-less, dancing amid a sea of people. At one point, you can even see 22-year-old White partying without a mask.

We reached out to Louisiana State Police, as well as the Webster Parish Sheriff's Office, for comment on the event ... but so far no word back yet.

But, reps for both departments had told us last week officers would be at or near the scene of the party to assist in traffic control ... although neither said definitively if they'd help enforce social distancing guidelines.

Meanwhile, the mayor of Cotton Valley, C.C. Cox, told TMZ Sports he was allowing the party to happen because, "That's what he wants to do, he can do it, you know?"

Nick Cannon's firing back at ViacomCBS after it dropped him for making anti-Semitic comments -- and he's now claiming it's the media giant that's being divisive, not him ... and he has a list of demands.

"The Masked Singer" host responded to Viacom's decision Wednesday morning, saying, he's "deeply saddened" the company "misused an important moment for us to all grow closer together and learn more about one another" and, instead ... he claims it's trying to "make an example of an outspoken black man."

Cannon vows to not be bullied or silenced, and says Viacom "does not understand or respect the power of the black community."

As we reported, Viacom cut bait with Nick over his comments on his podcast "Cannon's Class" ... where he openly espoused Anti-Jewish, and clearly divisive, rhetoric from Minister Farrakhan. He got a ton of backlash online, and then Viacom dropped the hammer, but Nick alleges the pot's calling the kettle black.

Cannon says ... "I honestly can’t believe that Viacom has such poor council that would allow them to make such a divisive decision in the midst of protests and civil uprising within our current pandemic. Truly an unwise decision."

He goes on to say he hoped his comments could lead to reconciliation and he could "use this moment to show healing and acceptance" ... but claims Viacom has no interest. He also accuses the media giant of banning all advertising that supported George Floyd and Breonna Taylor.

Nick acknowledges he's had an incredibly successful past with Viacom -- including his Nickelodeon days and the creation of 'Wild 'N Out,' but says the company is "now on the wrong side of history."

He did apologize "if I have furthered the hate speech" ... but also makes it clear he's gonna fight for "full ownership of my billion-dollar 'Wild ‘N Out' brand that I created, and they will continue to misuse and destroy without my leadership! I demand that the hate and back door bullying cease and while we are at it, now that the truth is out, I demand the Apology!"

Pray for whoever is staying under Jimmy Butler's hotel room in the NBA bubble ... 'cause the Miami Heat star got busted by security for making too much noise ... and it was all because of a hardcore workout sesh.

Of course, players and staffers who entered the Orlando bubble are forced to quarantine in their rooms for 48 hours before being allowed to roam the campus ... and Butler decided to use it as an opportunity to hone his ball-handling skills.

The 30-year-old -- who is known to take his practice VERY seriously -- was dribbling throughout his room last week ... which led to someone snitching to security about a loud bumping noise.

According to Chris Haynes of Yahoo! Sports, security had to go check on Butler ... who was decked out in practice gear and drenched in sweat when he opened the door.

"He was dribbling a basketball throughout his room the whole time," Haynes said.

Now that the quarantine period is over, Butler can practice the old-fashioned way ... and whoever is staying under him can finally get some rest.

Nick Cannon's under fire for comments he made about melanin, white people and why they became "savages" long, long ago -- and some are even calling him a "black supremacist."

"The Masked Singer" host has recently been accused of spewing anti-Semitism on his podcast, "Cannon's Class," but now it's this brief clip from his June 30 episode with Professor Griff -- formerly of Public Enemy -- that has people riled up.

Nick said that the power of melanin -- or lack thereof -- made white people "a little less" than darker-skinned people ... and claims this deficiency leads to fear.

He was speaking anthropologically -- meaning the very first white people in modern-day Europe -- but went on to say white people's fear made them lack compassion and ultimately ... become evil.

Nick then referred to these white people of the past as "savages," "barbaric" and added ... "They're the ones that are actually closer to animals, they're the ones that are actually the true savages."

Now, some people are calling him out for the remarks, including black British rapper Zuby, who tweeted, "Nick Cannon has gone full black supremacist. This is 100% certified racist."

Cannon's controversy comes on the heels of allegations of being an anti-Semite and spreading anti-Jewish theories on his podcast ... so rough week so far.

A North Carolina woman who recently went viral for going on vile, racist rants -- and was later arrested for assault -- is now fighting for her life after a bizarre accident involving a fire truck.

Rachel Dawn Ruit was struck by an Asheville Fire Department pickup truck Monday afternoon after stepping out in front of traffic ... according to a witness.

Asheville PD says Ruit is "suffering from life threatening injuries" and is at the hospital in critical condition. The accident is being investigated.

Ruit is, unfortunately, otherwise known for appearing in multiple videos in downtown Asheville spewing racism ... and for her July 4 arrest for allegedly attacking both a woman in a hijab and a Black teenager.

Ruit allegedly ripped off the woman's head covering and grabbed the teenager in the groin. She was arrested and charged with simple assault, disorderly conduct and second degree trespassing.

Before her arrest, Ruit made news after people posted videos of her from June 13 and July 1 going on racist tirades. During the July 1 incident, witnesses claim she tried to attack a child and cops were called several times ... but never showed up.

Tekashi 6ix9ine will be absent from social media in the last couple weeks before he regains his freedom -- but he says he's coming back with a vengeance.

6ix9ine tells TMZ ... he just temporarily deactivated his Instagram account ahead of his home confinement ending around August 1. The reason? He says his lawyer, Lance Lazzaro, recommended it for the rapper's safety, so he's following through.

Tekashi says as freedom nears, his legal team thinks he might mistakenly leak some crucial info about his whereabouts, meaning where he is now or where he'll be next ... once he's cut loose. We're told Tekashi's team hasn't quite decided on that yet, but out of an abundance of caution they're advising he go dark for a while as they figure out that next move.

Not shockingly, Tekashi says he'll be back to trolling his haters soon enough, and insists he will NOT leaving his hometown of NYC. We're told one of his lawyers feels he should reconsider ... so the matter is still up in the air.

At any rate, 6ix9ine tells us he plans to keep roaming the streets of the Big Apple -- but adds he'll be rolling "like Trump" in that he'll have a ton of armed guards around. Specifically, he says he plans to hire 22 of them, all former law enforcement officers.

Tekashi also says he's gonna have 5 bulletproof SUV-like whips to escort him around town. Despite all those heavy duty precautions ... he insists he has "no fear" and is actually excited to get out and about again.

As for how these final days of home confinement will go ... Lazzaro says the feds will continue to drug test him, advise him and monitor his activity.

A passenger on an Alaska Airlines flight threatened to kill everyone onboard in the name of Jesus ... and the horrifying outburst was caught on camera.

The in-flight incident went down Saturday night on a flight from Seattle to Chicago, with an unruly passenger walking the aisle and screaming, "I'm going to kill everybody on this plane. Die in the name of Jesus!!!"

Fortunately, flight crew and 2 other passengers swiftly subdued the man after his outburst and no one was injured. It's unclear what led to the threat -- but you can see the fear on other passengers' faces as the man yelled.

The incident played out about 20 minutes into the flight, and the plane was forced to turn around for an emergency landing back at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport.

Once back on the ground, Port of Seattle Police took the man into custody and he was booked into King County Jail for harassment.

A radio host in New Hampshire went on a vile, racist tirade against a group of workers doing their job, because they dared to speak Spanish.

It's almost unbelievable ... Dianna Ploss saw the workers who were doing landscaping in downtown Nashua, and she just went nuts, screaming, "It's America. Speak English!"

Her ignorance is breathtaking ... she assumes they're working for the State of New Hampshire, as if that would justify her comments. For the record, there's no law in New Hampshire that we found prohibiting people from speaking languages other than English.

They correct her, saying they are a private company, but she's not deterred, hurling insults and making ridiculous demands.

An African-American man who happened to witness her tirade comes by and confronts her, and she barks back, "Because he's a black man. He's gonna protect the brown man from this white woman." Afterward, she posted on her Facebook page, "I'm not backing down."

We've seen a lot of racist videos, but rarely is the person who shoots it the racist herself.  BTW ... Ploss reportedly quit her job in 2016 to campaign for Trump.

There's a petition circulating for her to get the ax from her radio station. Hopefully, the petition is written in English and Spanish.

An Indiana man is proud of himself this weekend, thinking he cleverly combined 2 symbols of hate -- the Confederate flag, and a noose. And, he has them displayed on the back of his pickup truck.

The man was in Bedford, Indiana when he recorded himself next to his pickup truck with the flag adhered to the back. Draped over the flag -- a noose.

He and one of his cohorts joked that it was just a leash for his dog, which itself is thinly-veiled dog-whistling. The men joked they couldn't understand why someone would leave a note on their car in disapproval.

One of the TikTok's biggest personalities says he thinks there are serious issues with the app, but isn't worried if the U.S. bans it outright ... 'cause he's got a surefire backup plan.

We spoke to the uber-popular content creator, Thomas Petrou, Saturday night in WeHo, and he told us straight-up ... he DOES think TikTok has privacy and security issues ... something the Trump administration came out and said as justification for possibly nixing it from our shores.

Tom didn't get into the details of what he thinks the problem with it is, but if you've been keeping up -- you know it's a Chinese-run company ... and U.S. officials are very skeptical.

So, what's the solution? Well, according to TP ... he says he hopes a competitor comes along and offers what TikTok does, but in a safer environment. He's got the perfect man in mind for the job too ... any guesses?

But, get this ... Thomas says if TikTok is, in fact, shut down and deemed an actual security threat to Americans -- he'll have no problem migrating to another platform that he knows and loves. Yes, it's where Jake Paul and a ton of other viral video folks live ... YouTube, baby.

A Houston-area water park is getting hosed with backlash after their packed-to-the-gills nighttime rager got put on blast -- but the place is sticking to its guns, despite a ghastly increase in COVID cases that is about to overrun the City's ICU's.

Typhoon Texas Houston was super busy Friday night during one of its night swims. The park is known for staying open after dark ... they do a whole glow-in-the-dark show and all.

Sure enough, a lot of folks recorded the goings-on ... which amounted to little or no social distancing, on dry ground and in the pools. And, of course, hardly a masks.

Now, we've seen this before -- notably, in Wisconsin last weekend. There, too, the place was jam-packed with not a whole lot of safety precautions being taken by really anyone.

As far as Typhoon Texas goes, though, they say they're doing everything they can to keep people safe -- regular cleaning of the tubes and slides, putting out hand sanitizer stations and having their cabanas and seating areas spread out.

They also say there's tons of signage telling people to practice proper social distancing -- it certainly doesn't look like it's being enforced too extraneously if we're being honest.

It's a shame, because the COVID numbers in Texas -- much like elsewhere across the country -- are skyrocketing. Deaths in Texas are reportedly up 108% over the past seven days, and Saturday marked the highest single-day case count at 10,351. Wild figures.

Disney World just reopened their doors to a couple major parks, and if you asked Goofy how the safety measures were going ... he'd probably say something like, "Oh, gawrsh."

The Mouse House welcomed back guests Saturday to both Magic Kingdom and Animal Kingdom -- Epcot and Disney's Hollywood Studios are to follow next week -- and on day 1 after being closed for months, the place didn't seem to fully have its act together.

The good news is that just about everyone -- including Disney staff -- were wearing face masks. The problem though ... lines to get in were incredibly long, and it didn't seem like too many people were properly practicing social distancing as they waited to gain entry.

Once inside, it looks like folks were able to spread out a bit more -- plus, they were doing temperature checks at the front gates ... so some reassurances there. Disney hasn't given any hard numbers, but word is they're limiting their park capacity by at least half.

As for how things operate on the inside -- reports say they suspended firework shows and parades to avoid large crowds. Cast members and costumed characters are spread out -- but sure enough, it's the same Disney cheer you always get when roaming the grounds.

Unclear how they're running the rides -- if it's anything like how they're doing it in Shanghai ... each car will look considerably emptier than they usually do. So longer waits there too.

While the park grounds themselves seem to be running according to plan and with apparently effective measures, it's still pretty clear that funneling people in from the beginning is something Disney and co. will have to tighten up. Journalist Carlye Wisel documented some of the s***show from outside -- she decided it was so bad, she left.

Of course, this comes with a backdrop of spiking coronavirus cases throughout the U.S., especially in Florida -- which recorded its highest case count Friday since July 4 and nearly 500 new hospitalizations ... the highest on record there since the pandemic began.

A Karen in Florida decided to make mask-wearing racial by calling a woman who dared to follow the mandate of her county a "good little slave" ... and wait till you hear why Karen thinks she has a pass.

It went down in Pasco County, Florida Friday, when the 2 women were waiting for a bus. When it arrived, the black woman followed the county's mandate and put on her mask, since she was boarding an enclosed space.

That was enough for Karen to get all racist, but when she was called out, she tried to justify it by saying she was Mexican. News flash ... irrelevant.