Mel Gibson's Long, Hateful History
7/12/2010 11:05:00 AM
kenmouse
, Posted in
Mel Gibson has had more comebacks than Jesus.While the critics are probably right in saying he's going to have a hard time restoring the public's affection after his most recent tirade--shocking recordings of verbal and implied physical abuse against his girlfriend--he's been in similar situations before, many times.
A look at his public record isn't pretty.
As web sites such as Gawker.com have pointed out, his trail of ugly rhetoric stretches back to 1991, when he angered the gay community with remarks made to the Spanish newspaper El Pais and reported in the U.S. by columnist Liz Smith.
"They take it up the a**..this is only for taking a s***," he told the newspaper. "With this look, who's going to think I'm gay? I don't lend myself to that type of confusion. Do I look like a homosexual? Do I talk like them? Do I move like them?"
When asked about the comments by Good Morning America, he replied: "I don't think there's an apology necessary, and I'm certainly not giving one. [Those remarks were a response] to a direct question. If someone wants my opinion, I'll give it. What, am I supposed to lie to them?"
When asked about the incident again by Playboy in 1995, he responded: "I'll apologize when hell freezes over. They can f*** off." (He later agreed to peace talks with the gay group GLAAD, brokered by its then-media director, Chaz Bono.)
After that, Mel stayed quiet until his infamous 2006 DUI bust in Malibu. At that time he was moved to observe to the officer who pulled him over: "F***ing Jews...the Jews are responsible for all the wars in the world...are you a Jew?"
At this point, you might think that show business is an odd career choice for someone who doesn't like Jews or homosexuals. But as TMZ reported shortly afterward, he also found time to insult women, remarking to a female officer on the scene: "What do you think you're looking at, sugar tits?"
Mel laid low after that debacle, but was buoyed by the positive reaction to his 2006 film "Apocalypto." Entering rehab for alcohol and his image as a deeply-religious family man also helped cushion the blow.
But that family image took a fatal blow when he divorced the mother of his seven children in 2009 and took up with Oksana Grigorieva, with whom he had a baby (out of wedlock) later that year. By April of 2010, that relationship had ended.
It was that ugly break-up which seems to have prompted Mel's worst tirades of all, in which he goes out of his way to use unconnected racial slurs to insult his Russian ex.
"You look like a f***ing pig in heat, and if you get raped by a pack of n*****s, it will be your fault," he says on one recording. Speaking separately about a female employee, he says: "I will report her to the f****ng people that take f***ing money from the wetbacks."
About her appearance, he says: "Look what you are... look what every part of you is... f***ing fake... you are the most synthetic person... who the f*** are you?"
In perhaps the most shocking portion of the tape, Grigorieva demands to know "what kind of man" would hit her in the face, while she was holding their baby. His response was: "You know what? You f***ing deserved it."
Gibson himself thinks he's indestructible, telling the London Telegraph (about his earlier troubles, before the Grigorieva tapes were made public): "I am one tough m*****f****r and you can't bother me anymore. You ask anybody what their number one fear is and it's public humiliation. Multiply that on a global scale and that's what I've been through. It changes you and makes you one tough m*****f*****. What doesn't kill you makes you stronger."
But after almost 20 years of practice, it seems that Mel may finally have launched the tirade that ends his career.
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