RIP

Former college football player Ray Lewis III -- the son of Hall of Fame linebacker Ray Lewis -- has tragically passed away, TMZ Sports has confirmed. He was 28 years old.

Details surrounding Lewis III's death have not been released.

Ray was a star running back at Lake Mary Prep H.S. in Florida, rushing for 1,898 yards and 20 touchdowns, as well as 676 yards and four touchdowns receiving during his senior season. He went on to play at the college level for the Miami Hurricanes, Coastal Carolina Chanticleers and Virginia Union Panthers.

We spoke with Virginia Union Associate Head Coach Diego Ryland about Lewis III's passing ... and he said it's "very unfortunate."

"Great young man and a better teammate. The entire Virginia Union University community is praying for the family as they deal with the loss of Ray."

Lewis' younger brother, Rahsaan, shared the news in a heartbreaking farewell Thursday afternoon ... saying, "Really can't believe I'm even typing this but RIP big brother."

"A true angel I pray your at peace now because IK how much you was rlly hurtin. I don't and won't ever have the words man cuz this pain right here....I love you I love you I love you."

He added ... "Your niece gone miss you but she will hear about u over and over just watch over us all big bruh be our guardian I promise I'll make you smile and proud."

Lewis III most recently suited up for the Wyoming Mustangs of the Champions Indoor Football league.

Lewis III was also pursuing a career in the music industry.

Cycling star Gino Mader has tragically died ... succumbing to serious injuries he suffered in a horrifying crash at the Tour de Suisse on Thursday.

Mader's team, Bahrain Victorious, announced the sad news Friday morning ... explaining the Swiss rider was initially hurt after he lost control of his bike while traveling at a high rate of speed on a downhill portion of the race's Stage 5.

Tour de Suisse organizers said Mader tumbled into a ravine as a result of the wreck ... and when medical personnel first found him, he was laying motionless in a body of water.

Mader was able to be resuscitated at the scene and then airlifted to a nearby hospital ... but he passed away hours later.

"Despite the best efforts of the phenomenal staff at Chur hospital, Gino couldn’t make it through this, his final and biggest challenge," Mader's team said, "and at 11:30 a.m. we said goodbye to one of the shining lights of our team."

Bahrain Victorious officials added, "Gino was an extraordinary athlete, an example of determination, a valued member of our team and the whole cycling community. His talent, dedication, and passion for the sport has inspired us all."

Despite the tragedy, the Tour de Suisse will continue ... and before Friday's Stage 6 kicked off, other cyclists gathered in a circle to pay their respects to Mader.

"Gino," Mader's team said Friday, "thank you for the light, the joy, and the laughs you brought us all, we will miss you as a rider and as a person."

Mader was just 26 years old.

Rap pioneer Gangsta Boo died after consuming a cocktail of hard drugs and alcohol ... this according to a new report.

According to FOX13 in Memphis, the autopsy report for the hip hop artist states she died from an accidental overdose brought on by fentanyl, cocaine, and booze.

As we previously reported, Boo -- whose real name was Lola Mitchell -- was found unconscious on New Year’s Day inside a Memphis residence ... and despite efforts to revive her, she was pronounced dead on the scene. She was 43.

Treat Williams was alert and talking in the minutes after the motorcycle accident that ultimately claimed his life, a new report says.

On Wednesday, People magazine interviewed an eyewitness who revealed he saw Treat fly 15 feet into the air after his chopper collided with an SUV in East Dorset, Vermont.

Police said Treat was unable to maneuver out of the way of the oncoming Honda Element SUV, which had just made a turn into his path. The other motorist suffered minor injuries and has not been charged or cited in Monday's crash, although cops are still investigating.

The witness, Matt Rapphahn, told People … he sprinted over to Treat -- who was lying on the ground -- to see if the actor was ok. Rapphahn then dashed back to his auto repair shop and called 911, noting the SUV driver got out of his vehicle to console Treat.

Rapphahn said, "It was hard to tell [it was Treat] with the helmet on, but [the SUV driver] knows him — knew him — and he was saying, 'Oh, my God, it's Treat.'"

Paramedics quickly arrived on scene and started working on Treat, who was "conscious and verbal," according to Rapphahn.

Rapphahn went on to say Treat was in enormous pain as first responders moved him onto a stretcher so he could be placed inside an ambulance.

Daniel Penny -- the man who choked Jordan Neely to death on an NYC subway -- has been indicted by a grand jury.

The ex-marine has now been formally charged as a result of his arrest last month -- when he was booked on a 2nd-degree manslaughter charge ... it's not yet clear if the indictment charges are the same ones he was booked on.

Like we said ... the exact charges in the indictment are unknown at this point. It appears they’ll remain under seal until he appears in court at a later date.

There's been a lot of discourse over Penny's arrest. Some see it as justice -- including Neely's family, who want this guy prosecuted to the full extent of the law ... saying he acted as a vigilante that day and took things way too far with his prolonged chokehold.

Others, however, are saying Penny shouldn’t face charges for acting as what they describe as essentially a good Samaritan. There are reports Neely was harassing folks down in the subway that day ... and that Penny stepped in to protect others.

Of course, there's a race element that's been floated as well. Neely was Black, and Penny is white -- and there are folks who believe his actions may have been motivated by the color of Neely's skin ... although, Penny has strongly denied that, insisting he was just trying to do the right thing.

Regardless, he’ll now he'll have to navigate the criminal justice system. It's unclear when he's due in court again. It goes without saying ... Neely's death has sparked protests, and in some cases -- things have gotten tumultuous with cops.

Top high school football recruit Dion Stutts -- a defensive lineman who was committed to playing for the Univ. of Arkansas in 2024 -- tragically died on Tuesday following a utility vehicle accident ... TMZ Sports has confirmed.

A spokesperson for the Panola County Sheriff's Office tells us ... the incident occurred on Stutts' family farm in Batesville, Miss.

The rep said Stutts had been driving in a side-by-side with another person ... when it somehow crashed. Stutts' passenger was uninjured and was able to try to get help for the football player -- but he was sadly later pronounced deceased.

He was just 18 years old.

An investigation into the wreck remains ongoing, the police spokesperson said.

The Razorbacks -- who accepted a commitment from Stutts back in March -- said in a statement Wednesday they're devastated over the news.

"We are heartbroken over the passing of Dion Stutts," the team wrote on its Twitter page. "He was a tremendous young man with a bright future ahead of him. We were as excited to add him to our program as he was to be a Razorback."

"Our thoughts and prayers are with his mother Shante and father Dino along with his entire family as they deal with this loss."

Stutts attended Memphis University School in Tennessee ... and in addition to being a force on the football field, he also starred for the school's wrestling team.

The 6-foot-3, 250-pound athlete had racked up multiple scholarship offers, including ones from Texas A&M, South Carolina and Mississippi State -- before he committed to Arkansas.

"Our hearts go out to the family and friends of rising senior Dion Stutts," MUS athletics said in a statement.

Added Univ. of Memphis head football coach Ryan Silverfield, "Our thoughts and prayers are with the family of Dion Stutts and the entire MUS community."

9:58 AM PT -- 6/16 -- Hannah just filed an official response, obtained by TMZ ... in which her attorney claims they've spoken to multiple others on set who all agree Hannah was reliable, competent and most definitely not hungover on the job.

They also state Hannah was not intoxicated the night before the fatal accident, and to claim she was "likely" hungover the day of the shooting is just recklessly false. Hannah's legal team says the allegations are clearly just an attempt to ruin Hannah's character.

9:52 AM PT -- 6/14 -- Hannah's attorney, Jason Bowles, tells TMZ, "The prosecution has so mishandled this case and the case is so weak that they are now resorting to character assassination tactics to further taint the jury pool. This investigation and prosecution has not been about seeking Justice; for them it’s been about finding a convenient scapegoat."

Prosecutors in the fatal "Rust" shooting case are now saying they've got witnesses who will testify the set's armorer, Hannah Gutierrez-Reed, was a bit of a party animal in New Mexico ... and they say she was likely hungover when the live bullet was loaded into the gun.

According to new docs, obtained by TMZ, the Santa Fe District Attorney says they've got witnesses that say Hannah "was drinking heavily and smoking marijuana in the evenings during the shooting of Rust."

They push harder -- saying despite being allegedly hungover, Hannah still put a live round "into a gun that she knew was going to be used at some point by an actor while filming a shooting scene with other actors and crew members."

As we reported, Hannah's attorney Jason Bowles sat down with us in February ... claiming his client tried her best to keep the set as safe as possible, but said she was just stretched too thin on the low-budget flick.

What's more, Jason pointed fingers at Assistant Director Dave Halls -- saying Hannah told him to let her know if Alec Baldwin would be handling the gun in question, but claims she was never given the heads up.

You'll recall, the involuntary manslaughter charges against Alec were dropped in April ... but it's clear prosecutors are still going hard against Hannah.

Boosie Badazz is getting some heat for showing up to support YNW Melly in his double homicide trial from one of the alleged victim's fathers ... accusing Boosie of being a cheerleader for murder.

Christopher Thomas Sr., the father of YNW Juvy, one of the two men Melly is accused of killing, lashed out at Boosie for supporting Melly, someone he doesn't even know!!!

Chris says Boosie should focus his attention on his ex-friend Marlo Mike, who was sentenced to life in Baton Rouge

The trial's getting deeper already. Christopher Sr. has a daughter who's the sister of both YNW Juvy and Melly's alleged co-conspirator ... YNW Bortlen.

Jacky Oh's death is propelling her business ... her cosmetics line is seeing a huge spike in sales, and we're told there's talk her young daughter could eventually take over the brand.

A rep for Jacky tells TMZ ... her beauty brand, J Nova Collection, is being flooded with orders in the wake of her shocking and sudden death ... and products are selling out.

We're told the company's received over 2,000 orders since Jacky died two weeks ago ... with lip liner, lip gloss, and eyelashes among the most popular products. At one point, we're told the website had to shut down due to the huge increase in traffic.

Jacky named the brand after her and DC Young Fly's first daughter, Nova, and we're told the plan is to keep the business running and possibly make Nova the face of the brand.

We're told Jacky was super hands-on with the J Nova Collection, running it with her sister Megan, who serves as the brand's creative director ... and her family and friends are all pitching in to run the brand in the interim and get all the orders shipped out.

Nova's only 6 years old, so she's a long way off from taking over the business side of her mom's brand ... but we're told the family plans to sit down soon and figure out who will fill the leadership role moving forward.

Those decisions may be on the back burner ... it's only been two weeks since Jacky died.

We're now learning more about the sequence of events that happened before four children survived a month-long-plus ordeal in the Amazon rainforest.

TMZ has obtained the official crash report issued by Colombian authorities in this case ... and it goes into great detail about how exactly this aircraft they were all on went down, and more importantly -- how these children could've possibly made it out relatively unscathed.

Check out these never-before-seen photos of the aftermath showing the wreckage ... as well as the diagrams experts crafted to demonstrate how this tragedy quite likely unfolded.

For starters ... you can see that this plane lost its engine as it was falling out of the sky and that the mechanical piece itself ended up landing far away from the actual crash site.

Here's what else you can see ... the plane was totally crushed, but more so on the front -- as it appears to have nosedived straight into the jungle after flying too low and seemingly clipping the tree line. After that, the plane went plummeting straight into the ground.

The reason this is relevant to the children's survival ... their position in seating onboard. Investigators found that the kids were all sitting near the back of the plane -- whereas the adults, including their late mother, were upfront ... which explains how she died.

What doesn't make sense -- and what can only be described as a true miracle -- is the fact that the 1-year-old baby in the group (who also survived) was discovered to have been sitting in his mother's lap during the crash. And yet ... the infant somehow escaped death.

As we reported ... these kids not only lived through the plane crash -- which is incredible in and of itself -- but they went on to survive an extra 40 days in the jungle on their own.

When they were finally discovered by a search party ... the reunion was absolutely joyous. And while it proved to be a happy moment -- you could absolutely tell these little ones had been through a rigorous journey. Their full tale has yet to be told ... but it's still fascinating.

Incredible photos from the moment four children were found in the Amazon 40 days after their family's plane crashed show just how delicate their situation was leading up to the rescue.

We've obtained a handful of pics taken the day a search and rescue team stumbled across the young kiddos who were buried deep in a Colombian jungle -- where the siblings somehow survived for over a month following a traumatic accident that killed their mom.

You've probably heard about the story by now -- Colombian authorities, with the assistance of indigenous tribes, scoured the rainforest for weeks in search of these children ... this after they went unaccounted for amid the plane wreckage, where three adult bodies were found.

In what can only be described as a miracle ... the little tykes -- who ranged in age from 1 to 13 -- found a way to stay alive before they were finally found and brought back to civilization.

Now, you can see what sort of living conditions they were under at the moment of their discovery ... and just how happy the adults -- including their father, who you can see is so relieved to be with his little ones -- were to finally see them.

The grown-ups who encountered them posed for a bunch of loving shots ... cradling and hugging the children, who also look relieved and excited to be done with the nightmare saga.

It's pretty clear everyone was overcome with joy ... but more telling is just how exhausted and famished the kids look. Their faces are skinny and sunken -- and it seems like they'd gone through a lot to pull through. Their story, at this point, is mostly unknown.

Ted Kaczynski, the man known as the "Unabomber," died by suicide in federal prison by hanging himself, TMZ has learned.

According to a 911 audio recording, obtained by TMZ ... someone inside the prison called emergency services Saturday morning, requesting assistance at FMC Butner in North Carolina.

The caller stated he "got a guy that was hanging ... they got a crash cart up there now." A crash cart is a wheeled container that carries medicine and equipment for use in emergency resuscitations.

Sources with direct knowledge tell us ... Kaczynski suffered serious neck injuries, including redness from ear to ear and a deformed/depressed trachea. We're told rigor mortis had also set in, particularly in his arms and legs.

One source told us leading up to his death, Kaczynski appeared ghost-like and frail -- unlike how he looked when he was arrested by the FBI in Montana on April 3, 1996. He was serving life in prison after his federal conviction for killing 3 people and maiming many others during a 20-year domestic terror campaign, involving mail bombs.

Treat Williams, whose career accomplishments include "Hair" and "Everwood" has died as the result of a motorcycle accident.

Williams' agent, Barry McPherson, tells People, "He was killed this afternoon. He was making a left or a right [and] a car cut him off. I'm just devastated. He was the nicest guy. He was so talented."

People reports the crash happened Monday in Dorset, Vermont.

Williams' career spanned decades, with appearances on "Blue Bloods" as recent as this year. He appeared in nearly 100 episodes of "Everwood" in the early 2000s as Dr. Andrew Brown ... and played Berger in "Hair" in 1979.

Williams was a three-time Golden Globe nominee, for his work on "Hair," "Prince of the City" and "A Streetcar Named Desire." He also received a Best Actor Emmy nomination for his work in "The Late Shift" in 1996.

He is survived by wife, Pam Van Sant, and their two kids, Gill and Ellie.

Treat was 71.

RIP

Lisa Marie Presley's daughter Riley Keough seems to be getting close to the finish line in her winding journey to take over her mother's trust ... she just needs a stamp of approval from the court.

According to new legal docs, obtained by TMZ, Riley wants the court to approve the settlement confirming she's the sole trustee of Lisa's trust ... which holds the proceeds of a life insurance policy.

As we previously reported, Riley and her grandmother, Priscilla Presley, recently settled their dispute over who would control Lisa's trust ... agreeing to a settlement where Riley got control and Priscilla got a seven-figure payday.

Riley wants the court to approve the settlement the family agreed to ... which also confirms Lisa's ex-husband, Michael Lockwood, as the guardian ad litem regarding these estate matters for their 14-year-old twin girls.

Remember ... when Elvis Presley's only child died back in January, there was a lot of behind-the-scenes family drama ... with Priscilla and Michael squaring off against Riley.

Tupac's father Billy Garland is showing he's not above buying into a juicy conspiracy theory, and wholeheartedly believes the United States government killed his son.

In his latest interview bit with "The Art of Dialogue," Billy claims his son was tailed by the government for years including September 7, 1996, when Pac was shot in Vegas.

Rap fans have heard the stories a million times ... Pac and members of Death Row Records' entourage stomped out Los Angeles native Orlando Anderson following the Mike Tyson vs. Bruce Seldon fight, only for him allegedly to return hours later, guns a blazing.

Billy condemned Pac's behavior that night, citing his need to prove himself to the Death Row team. He also scolded Suge Knight and the security team for not protecting the label's money maker and being too comfortable with him leading the charge.

Orlando's uncle Keefe D has implicated his nephew (and himself) in the Tupac shooting for years ... but Billy thinks his self-snitching has been a part of the government's master plan and doesn't think either of them had anything to do with the murder.

YNW Melly's career essentially came to an end in 2019 after he was arrested and charged with double homicide ... but his streaming has seen a resurgence as of late.

On Monday, Melly's trial kicked off in Florida's Broward County court, where it was uncovered the 24-year-old rapper had absolutely zero RIAA certifications on his wall at the time of his arrest on February 13, 2019 ... but now has 10 platinum plaques and 6 gold.

Fans have especially been running up the numbers for Melly's more sinister tracks ... "Suicidal" sits at 4x platinum while his signature hit "Murder on My Mind" is fairly close to Diamond status at 6x platinum.

Melly and Kanye West's 2020 collab "Mixed Personalities" is also double platinum.

The Florida rapper, born Jamell Demons, stands accused of gunning down his own friends YNW Juvy and YNW Sakchaser.