You Might Want to Rethink

Meghan Markle set the wheels in motion for Piers Morgan to quit "Good Morning Britain" ... reportedly by filing a complaint with his bosses about his remarks after the Oprah interview.

According to multiple reports, The Duchess of Sussex went directly to honchos at ITV -- which airs 'GMB' -- shortly after Piers' initial tirade where he questioned her suicidal thoughts.

Meghan's concern wasn't only about the personal nature of his inflammatory comments, but she was more worried about how Piers downplaying mental health could affect UK viewers dealing with suicidal thoughts.

It's unclear for certain if her calling had any impact on Piers deciding to leave the show altogether -- but he certainly made it seem that way in a follow-up interview outside his home Tuesday night ... where he doubled down on not believing a word she says.

Check out the clip ... he also talks about the notion that he had to "fall on his sword" to make a point about free speech -- so, it seems clear he didn't go on his own terms.

On paper, Piers offered his resignation ... and ITV said they accepted it, refusing to comment further. Piers' exit came on the heels of another dramatic day on set.

Remember, PM got into it with ITV weatherman Alex Beresford ... who claimed he had a personal vendetta against Meghan after she cut him out of the loop, suggesting they were actually friendly once upon a time. Piers eventually stood up and stormed out.

As for the reported complaint Meghan filed, there were lots of others that came in right around the same time -- a reported 40,000 or so came flooding in after Piers' comments Monday ... and UK media regulator Ofcom has said it's investigating whether Piers might've violated any of their rules.

Lyft's not waiting around for an attack to go down in one of its cars -- it's banning the maskless rider who coughed on and attacked an Uber driver.

Lyft hilariously dissed the woman who vowed she'd only use Lyft after Uber banned her. The app said it made a preemptive decision to ban the rider permanently ... citing her disrespectful behavior.

As we reported ... the woman and the Bay Area Uber driver got into a dispute over a mask policy last weekend that quickly escalated when she coughed on the driver and ripped off his mask. Cops say the woman and her 2 friends also attacked the Uber driver with what they believe to be pepper spray.

Of course, Uber banned the rider ... and shortly after the ban, she posted a video excusing her behavior. She did apologize for pretending to have COVID-19 during the incident -- admitting "that was disrespectful as f***."

However, she added she's going to sue Uber, cursed out the driver ... and said, 3 times, this is why she takes Lyft.

Meyers Leonard is in some seriously hot water -- the Miami Heat center appeared to use an anti-Semitic slur during a recent video game stream this week ... and it was all captured on video.

The 29-year-old was playing "Call Of Duty: Warzone" on his Twitch channel -- which has nearly 70,000 followers -- when he seemingly says the following: "F***ing cowards, don't f***ing snipe me, you f***ing k*** bitch."

Yeah ... it's bad.

The comment was met with awkward laughter by other gamers on the stream ... but Leonard seemed to brush off the situation and kept playing.

Leonard has yet to address the incident -- he was actually still streaming on his channel early Tuesday afternoon -- but it's only a matter of time.

ML could now face punishment from Twitch -- the streaming service has a strict policy against hateful conduct and harassment based on race, ethnicity, color, caste, national origin, religion, sexual orientation and more.

Leonard's alleged comments come just months after NASCAR driver Kyle Larson was suspended after using the n-word during an iRacing event in April.

Fellow NASCAR driver Hailie Deegan also faced criticism after using the r-word during a virtual race in January.

FYI -- Leonard was one of the few NBA players who chose not to kneel for the national anthem during the season restart in Orlando.

He explained his decision to stand in a tweet earlier this year, saying, "I STAND AGAINST bigotry, racism, and hate."

We've reached out to Leonard's reps, the Heat, the NBA and Twitch for comment ... so far, no word back.

Piers Morgan's throwing up his hands and saying 'good day' on the set of his own show, because a co-host called him out to his face about constantly bashing Meghan Markle.

TV presenter and weatherman Alex Beresford was going in on Piers during a 'Good Morning Britain' segment ... calling his comments about Meghan in the aftermath of her Oprah interview "diabolical" and accusing him of having it out for her no matter what.

Beresford made the point that aside from their wedding day, Meg and Harry haven't much good press at all in the UK -- and he suggested Piers played a big part in that.

Then came the crucial blow that forced Piers' hand -- Beresford seemed to spill some insider info ... saying he knew Piers had been pals with Meghan once upon a time, but that at one point or another ... she cut him off. Beresford implies that's why Piers is always trashing her.

Morgan then got up and said he was done, walking off while Beresford continued going off to others on set.

Piers got into another spat over Meghan and Harry just a day earlier with Dr. Shola Mos-Shogbamimu, who also took him to task for his one-sided slant against the Duke and Duchess of Sussex.

BTW, Piers insists Tuesday's walkout wasn't staged -- but did say the chat that followed in his absence was great TV ... so, worth it.

Prince Charles has Black friends, or at least Black people who'll talk to him -- that's the image the palace seems to be putting out on the heels of Prince Harry and Meghan's racism claims.

The official Clarence House Instagram account posted a number of photos Tuesday showing the Prince of Wales visiting a place called Jesus House, which just popped up in London as a new vaccination site under the country's National Health Service.

In all of the pics you see Charles yukking it up with both workers and visitors ... all of whom are Black.

The caption reads, "Continuing Their Royal Highnesses’ work to encourage vaccine take-up, The Prince of Wales today visited @jesushouseuk in London." Clarence House also wants us to know Charles is committed, as is Jesus House, to combatting vaccine hesitancy in the Black community.

Now, Buckingham Palace is denying this visit is just about optics, and claim Charles was scheduled to visit over a week ago.

Of course, the Royals certainly knew when Harry and Meghan's Oprah interview was going to air more than a week ago. Also, Charles' last visit to Jesus House was way back in 2007.

So, was this a response to the allegations of racism in the British Monarchy ... and someone in the Royal family being concerned about Archie's skin color?

Pepe Le Pew was never meant to be interpreted as rape-y, but the times have caught up with him to make it seem that way ... so says the daughter of the guy who first drew him.

Linda Jones -- whose father, Chuck Jones, is credited as the creator and original animator of Pepe and other Looney Tunes -- tells TMZ she strongly disagrees with the notion the suave skunk contributed to rape culture, as suggested in an NYT op-ed.

On the contrary, Linda says she doesn't think anyone who ever watched Pepe was inspired to go out and rape, or even harass, people. She gets pretty literal, saying Pepe never raped another character on the show -- which, okay ... that's a given.

Still, LJ just doesn't think Pepe should be canceled or shelved over this -- because the OG running gag with him was never meant to be predatory ... she says it was more about how much he stunk as a suitor, despite thinking he was desirable.

She does admit Pepe's grabby approach toward Penelope Pussycat certainly doesn't look good by today's standards ... but insists folks who were watching him in the '50s, '60s and '70s were NOT thinking of that dynamic as normalizing rape culture.

Perhaps that was wrong or ignorant of audiences back then, she muses, but that just wasn't the vibe, nor the intention -- as she explains her pops, Chuck, was a super liberal dude, and was never out to hurt people. Linda says the purpose of Pepe was pure comedy.

As for axing Pepe from the new 'Space Jam' movie entirely ... Linda tells us that's Warner Bros.'s prerogative -- and that if they choose to give him a break for a while, so be it.

She did suggest something interesting to rebrand Pepe and capture the spirit her father intended -- write him as a perpetual job-seeker who keeps getting rejected, but constantly changes up his routine thinking he's the perfect candidate.

Breonna Taylor's boyfriend, Kenneth Walker, won't ever have to worry about facing charges over the raid on his home that left his girlfriend dead ... because a judge has deemed it so.

Judge Olu Stevens of Jefferson Circuit Court in Kentucky handed down the ruling Monday that the criminal charges Kenneth was originally facing in the immediate aftermath -- assault and attempted murder of an officer -- would be dismissed with prejudice.

That means they can't be filed against him again. A motion to dismiss with prejudice was recently filed by Jefferson Commonwealth's Attorney Tom Wine ... who said no new evidence had come to light that he felt could prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Kenneth knew he was shooting at cops on that fateful night.

Wine had already filed to dismiss the charges without prejudice almost a full year ago ... but he left the door open to possibly re-charge him, pending further investigation. Now, he -- and more importantly, a judge -- have closed the book on the issue.

At the heart of it is the lingering unanswered question about whether Louisville PD officers announced themselves as cops before busting in ... something Kenneth has maintained did NOT happen, which is why he says he shot -- to defend himself against intruders.

Of course, the police insist they did announce themselves -- but Sgt. Jonathan Mattingly also suggested this ... that perhaps both things were true, that they did announce -- but Kenneth simply didn't hear or couldn't make out what was being said amid the ruckus.

The decision to dismiss charges against Kenneth seems to fly in the face of AG Daniel Cameron's decision not to charge any of the cops directly with Breonna's killing ... saying a grand jury found the officers had, in fact, announced. He said it with much certainty.

HBO Max subscribers looking for some family fun were instead treated to an early look at Zack Snyder's "Justice League" ... with the streaming service leaking the film 10 days early.

Here's the deal ... folks who wanted to watch the PG-rated "Tom and Jerry" movie Monday on HBO Max were, instead, greeted with the R-rated "Justice League" thanks to a glitch on the streaming service.

HBO Max confirmed the accidental leak, saying the movie was "temporarily available" and "the error was addressed within minutes."

It appears a decent number of folks were able to catch a sneak peek of the highly-anticipated film ... including several Twitter users, who were quick to rub it in and crack jokes about staffers getting fired.

While HBO Max says the error was fixed "within minutes," some people say they were able to watch about an hour of the film before the feed was cut.

Snyder's version of the 2017 flick isn't set for an official release until March 18 ... so this is a pretty big oops.

Creighton head coach Greg McDermott is making his return to the bench this week ... one game after he was suspended for making a racially insensitive comment in a post-game speech last week.

As we previously reported, McDermott admitted to using a "plantation" analogy after a 77-69 loss to Xavier on Feb. 27 ... saying, "Guys, we got to stick together. We need both feet in. I need everybody to stay on the plantation. I can't have anybody leave the plantation."

McDermott apologized for the comment -- he even offered to resign from his position -- and was suspended from the team last Thursday.

The school has officially ended that punishment on Monday ... with Creighton AD Bruce Rasmussen saying McDermott "demonstrated a commitment to growth" in the days following the incident.

"I believe his apology, his commitment to grow from this, to learn, and regain the trust of his student-athletes and others impacted by his words," Rasmussen said.

The school says McDermott will also participate in a program with the Racial Equity Institute, which helps educate people on racism in institutional and structural settings.

Ousted Papa John's founder, John Schnatter, is talking in doublespeak ... insisting he's not racist, but copping to having to purge the n-word from his repertoire to prove it.

The former CEO of the pizza chain -- who got the boot a few years back for allegedly uttering the n-word in a conference call -- made an appearance on the far-right news channel, OAN ... where he was rehashing his experience, which he paints as a de facto coup.

At one point, Schnatter says the Board wrongly portrayed him as a racist -- adding he's been up at night since then, wondering how they got away with it.

Then comes the contradictory line ... JS says for the past 20 months, he's had 3 goals -- 1) "to get rid of this n-word in my vocabulary and dictionary and everything else because it's just not true," 2) figuring how they did this and 3) to get on with his life.

That first goal is a doozy to unpack. On its face, it sounds like he's admitting the n-word is a regular thing that shows up in his convos all the time, and that he's needed 20 months to exorcise himself of it.

Something tells us that's not what he meant -- he might've been trying to say "get rid of this n-word scandal" -- but that's certainly not how it came out. BTW, Schnatter keeps putting his foot in his mouth with these TV interviews, intentionally or not.

Remember, in 2019 ... he did another TV spot where he admitted he'd eaten 40 pizzas in 30 days (to see how they're holding up without him) -- and it just came off as sad and pathetic.

Bam Margera is learning hot tubs and fresh ink don't mix -- he needed a hospital stay to treat a staph infection from his latest tattoo.

The "Jackass" star was hospitalized over the weekend after experiencing pain in the same leg that's home to his new Farsi tatt. Bam's no stranger to pain -- it's kinda been his job for years -- so ya gotta imagine he was really hurting bad.

Bam says he had a staph infection, and sources close to him tell us the leg was likely infected when he went into a hot tub.

As anyone with tattoos likely knows, you're supposed to take it easy after getting inked up ... and hot tubs really sound like a bad idea, especially with leg tatts. Tough lesson here for Bam.

Burger King has a funny way of promoting gender equality -- because it said something totally sexist about women ... as a way to plug a new initiative supporting them.

Yes, this is what honchos at BK's British office thought would be a good campaign to hype a new scholarship program -- tweeting early Monday, "Women belong in the kitchen."

As the Internet started dragging them, BK added ... "If they want to, of course. Yet only 20% of chefs are women. We're on a mission to change the gender ratio in the restaurant industry by empowering female employees with the opportunity to pursue a culinary career. #IWD."

See what they did there? Piss off everyone with one disgustingly misogynistic tweet, then hit 'em with ... wait, we're doing a good thing!

BK says the scholarship is meant to uplift their female employees, who wanna move past fry cook and be bona fide chefs.

BTW ... March 8 is International Women's Day -- a worldwide holiday aimed at celebrating ladies everywhere. For some reason, Burger King ran with this as their #IWD campaign.

A couple hours after the in-poor-taste rollout ... Burger King UK added one last clarifying tweet -- "We are proud to be launching a new scholarship programme which will help female Burger King employees pursue their culinary dreams!"

Meghan Markle's claims of racism against the Royal Family appear to be partially backed up by the fact this very issue came up early on -- remember the brooch?

If ya don't, Princess Michael -- who's married to one of Queen Elizabeth's cousins -- apologized back in late 2017 when she was called out for wearing a Blackamoor brooch to a Royal gathering Meghan attended ... the first Christmas lunch since getting with Harry.

The brooch depicts a dark-skinned person wearing a turban, and it's thought to glorify colonialism and servitude ... as that line of jewelry often portrays POC in lesser-than positions.

Princess Michael said she meant nothing by it when she wore it to the lunch, and wasn't trying to offend or send a message to Meghan specifically.

Still, it's not a good look in light of what Meghan and Harry alleged in the explosive tell-all with Oprah -- namely, that they'd been informed by a member or members of the Royal Family that Archie's skin color could potentially be a problem, if he was born "too dark."

They wouldn't name the alleged perpetrator(s), but Harry did rule out 2 names in a follow-up chat ... saying neither Queen Elizabeth nor Prince Philip uttered such words.

Kyle Larson was back in NASCAR's victory lane Sunday for the first time since he publicly used the n-word ... and Bubba Wallace was one of the 1st people to congratulate the guy.

Just 11 months after Larson infamously dropped the slur during a virtual race last April ... the 28-year-old smoked the field to win the Pennzoil 400 in Las Vegas.

And, not only was Bubba waiting for him on the winner's stage to give him a handshake and a hug ... the most famous Black driver in NASCAR also said he was "proud and happy" for Larson afterward.

"Told him way to keep his head thru it all!" Wallace said of Larson's win. "We all knew it was a matter of time.."

Added Larson, "It meant a lot to have Bubba come to victory lane ... He said congrats. He's always believed in me. So that was special."

As we previously reported, Larson faced tremendous backlash after a hot mic caught him using the n-word on a live race stream in April 2020.

He was fired from his racing team, dropped by major sponsors and suspended by NASCAR over it all.

Larson -- who apologized vehemently for the incident and insisted he was not racist -- was reinstated by NASCAR in October ... and was signed by Hendrick Motorsports a short time later.

Sunday's race was just Larson's fourth with the new team.

Bubba, meanwhile, has supported Larson from the start of the entire drama ... saying at the time of the incident, "I am not mad at him, and I believe that he, along with most people deserve second chances."

Pepe Le Pew's problematic behavior appears to have been something Warner Bros. was well aware of before he was called out anew ... because he reportedly doesn't make a single appearance in the new 'Space Jam.'

A new Deadline report explains that the Looney Tunes character actually had a scene written into the movie early on in the production, when director Terence Nance was still at the helm. Apparently, there was a 'Casablanca'-like scene in which Pepe played a bartender and tried kissing the arm of a human character, portrayed by actress Greice Santo.

Deadline says Santo pulls back and slapped Pepe silly ... and LeBron James actually gave him a pep talk of sorts, letting him know it wasn't cool to get grabby without consent. The outlet also says Pepe referenced his longtime muse, Penelope Pussycat, and said she'd taken out a restraining order against him ... at least that's what was going to be in the flick before it was scrapped when Malcolm D. Lee took over as director.

Word is, the Pepe scene was axed entirely in the final cut of the film -- which is set to debut this summer -- and according to folks who've seen a screening of the movie, per Deadline, they say there's no trace of Pepe anywhere in what people will see on HBO Max.

Remember, Pepe IS in the original ... and has a few moments of screen time where he stinks up the place to score points -- and even jumps on an old woman to kiss her.

Now, whether this decision to lose Pepe altogether was made because of the NYT controversy -- in which a writer said the skunk normalized rape culture -- it would seem the two things are unrelated ... or so says Deadline. It's unclear why exactly he got nixed.

LeBron James was just asked if he would get a COVID-19 vaccine when he's able to -- and rather than firmly come out and say yes, he waffled ... which is startling.

King James did a 20-minute-plus interview Sunday for NBA All-Star Weekend ... and at one point he was asked how he's been able to stay COVID-free and relatively healthy throughout the pandemic. Bron chalked it up to luck and faith ... saying he just follows the protocols handed down by the league to a T, going straight home after he plays in games/practices.

Another 'rona question was raised at the very end of the interview ... a reporter asked if he himself would get vaccinated whenever that became an option, and whether he'd encourage everyone in the Players Association to do the same. He also referenced Adam Silver's recent remark that he was gonna leave it up to NBA players and not make it mandatory.

Silver said ... "My hunch is that most players ultimately will choose to get vaccinated. They have to make personal decisions at the end of the day."

In response, LeBron said this about his own decision on the vaccine ... "That's a conversation that, you know, my family and I will have. And, probably pretty much keep that to a private thing." He said he was aware of Silver's comments, but insisted it was something to be discussed among the family and not in public, and that's where he was going to keep it.

That's fascinating, considering LeBron is by far one of the most influential people in the world ... and perhaps the second or third most influential African-American. The fact he's wishy-washy on whether he'll get it speaks volumes, and could well influence others in the community.

Of course, vaccinations have been a major issue in the Black community ... as many simply don't trust it -- due to a number of historical atrocities perpetuated onto African-Americans and other factors as well. But, many prominent Black role models have been trying to convince the Black community this vaccine is safe and worth taking ... like the late, great Hank Aaron.