Update: So the story, according to Mel Gibson’s people, is that he was actually calling his own publicist an asshole and not Dean Richards. Their version of the event goes that a publicist was making faces at him off-camera and that Gibson didn’t realize he was still on air when he let the expletive fly. We’re filing this one under “horseshit,” but if it is true (we doubt it), what kind of publicist makes faces at the talent?
Drunk Mel Gibson doesn’t suffer police officers who pull him over, and when he’s sober, entertainment reporters better watch themselves too.
Speaking with WGN-TV’s Dean Richards, during a standard promo slog for “Edge Of Darkness” Gibson bristled at questions about his now infamous drunk driving episode during which he called a police officer “sugar tits” and went on an anti-Semitic tirade. Wisely, Gibson has kept himself offscreen for the past four or five years, choosing to work behind the camera instead, but investigative journalist entertainment reporter Richards couldn’t leave well enough alone and decided to ask the actor about his less than admirable past.
While Gibson winces at the first question, he still answers it grudgingly (and vaguely) but positively implodes (you can see it all over his face) when Richards continues to harp on the subject. Gibson objects and says he’s already issued his “mea culpas” and asks Richards to move on. The reporter then closes the interview to which an infuriated Gibson gulps his Starbucks, says goodbye and very calmly calls the guy an “asshole.”
While we certainly don’t condone celebrities telling off reporters, Gibson was already raked over the coals for the incident and did the whole Diane Sawyer thing, so we’re not really sure what Richards was hoping to achieve out of revisiting the issue. Though, during recent interviews about the subject, Gibson has said his anti-semitic remarks were ones he “didn’t necessarily make” when clearly police reports indicate otherwise (see below, the bottom clip). In that clip you can see Gibson being aggressive and evasive. But if one is busted for a crime, and the world reads about every ugly detail, then you suddenly suggest the event “allegedly” happened or you “may have said those things,” well, that shit aint’ gonna fly. And yes, people drink and make mistakes, we all do, but Gibson is sober now and he’s clearly aware of what he’s doing, how he’s acting and in ways, trying to forget and or cover it up.
Plus, it’s rather odd for someone to have revisionist thinking on a case that was this loud and clear in the media and that police reports proved. Is he backpeddling on culpability here? Also, we’re kind of surprised that Gibson’s people didn’t specifically instruct Richards to stay away from that topic (or, he had balls of steel enough to talk about it anyway).
The clip is below. Was Gibson out of line? See for yourself: