New Mel Gibson Tape

[quartermainefan]

http://www.radaronline.com/exclusives/2010/07/exclusive-new-audio-mel-gibson-admits-hitting-oksana-threatens-kill-her-listen-it

I like the part where in the middle of this rage he throws in "you make me want to smoke!"

[Cheap21]

The guy is a freaking psycho.

[marceline]

Somewhere John Mayer is breathing a sigh of relief.

[bellcurve]

Mel Gibson will commit murder one of these days and get exonerated O.J.-style.

Drunk, hateful bigot and racist.

[DRW50]

And yet some "experts", and of course Whoopi, still try to make us see the best of him.

http://abcnews.go.com/Entertainment/wireStory?id=11149158

I am just sick of these "stars" who behave in the most offensive manner and yet somehow we end up hearing that they are the victims and we are supposed to wait for their comeback. So many comment sections for these stories end up being about poor Mel taped illegally by a bimbo who just wants money, poor Mel speaks the truth about minorities, he's being targeted by Jewish Hollywood, on and on and on.

I hope that these types of comments don't represent public opinion.

[Cat]

Smoke what?

He'll blame it on the crack he's been smoking and the lines he has obviously been sniffing during the course of that conversation. What he WON'T blame it on is the fact that he is a repellant human being.

[dragonflies]

I couldn't believe Whoopi was defending that asshat

[All My Shadows]

What...makes a [!@#$%^&*] dysfunctional?

[Cheap21]

I understand Whoopi is his friend and has known him for years but theres no need to come to his defense with this. He made his bed and needs to deal with this on his own

[SFK]

Whoopi just LOVES to play devil's advocate, does anyone have a friend like that? I know I do. Just contrary for the sake of being contrary. I wonder what Mr. Danny Glover has to say about all this.

[marceline]

"I'm getting too old for this [!@#$%^&*]."

[SFK]

I did appreciate Sherri's point about Why is it that people are always trying to sic a "pack of [ s ]" on somebody?? I do agree that people can say nasty things that they don't really mean when they're angry, but that's what you do to the person who you're fighting with, i.e., calling her a pinko Russki c u next Tuesday or whatever. When you start to throw in epithets that don't even have to do with the object of your contention that's when it gets extra grimey.

I know Isaiah Washington's sitting somewhere thinking, "Mmph, I *wish* y'all would let this mickey flickey go, I *WISH* y'all would..."

[marceline]

I understand what Whoopi's saying. As somebody who knows what it's like when the media gets on it's high horse regarding race **coughTedDansoninblackfacecough**, she's decided to rely on her first person experience of Mel rather than the recording. I can respect that. Especially since she all but came out and said "He's not a racist, just an !@#$%^&*]."

I think any minority has experienced the shock and sadness of discovering bigotry from people who we thought knew better. It's painful to move people we care about into the "I can't be around you" column. But speaking for myself, I would end my friendship with him. This isn't someone who overestimated his "hood pass" like John Mayer. Mel Gibson is a psychotic, violent lunatic who needs to be incarcerated for his own good.

[quartermainefan]

Whoopi Goldberg is a putz. Usually you don't think women can be putzes, but she is. Her understanding and defending the lowest of the low goes beyond mere understanding of human nature, and enters into the idiocy portion of the human race. She wants to say she knows him, she wants to say "oh but that other time he was drunk..." whatever. Her defense of Michael Vick was disgusting. Defending him because he was black was even worse. Saying the sadistic torture and murder of innocent dogs was part of his "culture" and therefore morally equivalent to not torturing and killing dogs is not only an insult to black people and/or southerners, but an insult to culture in general. Why this woman is allowed to pontificate daily on TV is beyond me. The View rots the brain.

[dragonflies]

Interestingly the generally outspoken Mr. Glover had NOTHING to say on this, speaks VOLUMES to me as others not having anything to say:

http://www.latimes.c...,0,341591.story

Gibson scandal could doom his movie career

Talent agents and studio executives say it will be difficult for Gibson to be hired as an actor or director on a mainstream project. Gibson is heard on tapes threatening former girlfriend Oksana Grigorieva.

By Steven Zeitchik, Los Angeles Times

July 13, 2010

As Mel Gibson's legal and publicity problems mount, his prospects for a future in mainstream Hollywood grow dimmer.

Eight minutes of new audio surfaced on Monday capturing Gibson's angry and expletive-laden rant to ex-girlfriend Oksana Grigorieva. The recording, which appeared on the website Radar Online, follows an earlier release on the site of a tape in which Gibson uses foul and threatening language toward Grigorieva as well as the N-word. Monday's audio features an increasingly apoplectic Gibson threatening Grigorieva, with whom he's locked in a child custody battle, yelling at her that she needs a "bat to the side of the head" and that he could put her "in a … rose garden" if he wanted to. (Although the audio has not been independently verified by The Times, no one involved in the incident, including representatives from Gibson's camp, has called its authenticity into question.)

Interviews with a number of Hollywood talent agents and studio executives on Monday suggest that as a result of these recordings, Gibson has become anathema in the entertainment business; the insiders see little way Gibson would be hired as either an actor or director on any mainstream film.

On Friday, the news broke that Gibson had been dropped by his agency, William Morris Endeavor, around the time that the first reports of a diatribe against Grigorieva surfaced and as his longtime agent and supporter, Ed Limato, lay on his deathbed, both of which may have been factors in the decision.

The Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department also has confirmed that it is investigating the actor in a domestic abuse case. In the new recording, which will be added to evidence already being reviewed by detectives, the onetime A-lister seems to acknowledge that he hit Grigorieva, the mother of his child, when he responds to her mention of him hitting her by saying, "you … deserved it."

Sheriff's spokesman Steve Whitmore said the investigation would not be affected by Gibson's celebrity. "First of all there was no favoritism last time [referring to the 2006 Malibu incident]. There is no favoritism this time," Whitmore said. "We're just doing our job." The department faced criticism after Gibson's 2006 drunk driving arrest after it was suggested that the actor's anti-Semitic comments be expunged from the arrest report.

On Monday, Gibson's publicist, Hollywood veteran Alan Nierob, said that his client had no comment on the current scandal.

It's unlikely, agents in Hollywood said, that Gibson would be signed by another powerhouse Hollywood agency given his current low stock. But at least one smaller agency casually discussed the pros and cons of signing Gibson, an agent at the company said. At a meeting on Monday, the agency's staff debated whether it was worth the bad PR that would surely accompany such a move.

Experts in crisis public relations said Gibson was in a maelstrom of trouble that would challenge the best of their craft. "He needs to find an appropriate villain in this issue, and as long as he can't put it on alcohol and drug abuse, he's going to be the villain," said Jason Maloni a strategist at the publicity agency Levick Strategic Communications.

But he also said that the actor-director's career and image were, even after several offenses, not beyond salvaging. "Mel Gibson is first and foremost an artist, and as long as he can produce great work, he'll have a way forward," Maloni said, while acknowledging a Catch-22 problem in which Gibson may need to produce good work to resurrect his public image, but it would take a resurrection of his public image before a studio would hire him to work.

Many of Gibson's allies in Hollywood have remained quiet as the controversy has mushroomed.

On Monday, representatives for Jodie Foster, Gibson's longtime friend and his director and costar in his new movie "The Beaver," said that she was in post-production and unable to comment. A spokeswoman for Graham King, the producer who worked with Gibson on his recent film "Edge of Darkness" and has been planning a Viking epic that Gibson would direct, said King was on the set of another film and was unavailable to comment.

A spokeswoman for Danny Glover, the often vocal African American actor who costarred with Gibson in the four "Lethal Weapon" movies — the franchise that, with its biracial pairing, helped shoot Gibson to the top of the action-star A-list — chose not to weigh in. "At this time, Mr. Glover does not have a comment, and there is no statement regarding Mr. Gibson." When asked if that might change, the representative responded, "The decision is that he will not [comment]."

Experts said that the muted reaction highlighted the fickle nature of Hollywood activism. Although actors often speak out on public injustices — Glover is a U.N. goodwill ambassador to developing countries and is outspoken on racial issues — they often close ranks when one of their own is concerned. "That's what Hollywood is about, isn't it? Everyone covers themselves," said film historian David Thomson.

Gibson has shown a propensity to work in recent months — he returned to acting earlier this year in the crime thriller "Edge of Darkness," which performed middlingly at the U.S. box office. He also took a role in Foster's quirky indie movie "The Beaver" as a way of casting himself in a different light and appears in "How I Spent My Summer Vacation," in which he plays a criminal who, coincidentally, tries to rehabilitate himself.

The status of both films remains in question in the wake of Monday's startlingly raw audio. The former has U.S. distribution from the standalone studio Summit Entertainment, but industry experts believe the movie could stay on the shelf rather than coming out later this year given the newly created marketing challenges. "Vacation" has distribution in some overseas markets through Gibson's own Icon international distribution label but does not yet have a studio home in the U.S. Other projects — particularly the Viking picture, in which Gibson would direct Leonardo DiCaprio in a period drama — were also thrown into question as a result of the scandal.

Gibson can continue making movies through his own Los Angeles-based Icon Productions, which finances movies outside the Hollywood system. He's also believed to be capable of financing films directly from his own pocket, given residuals on franchises such as "Lethal Weapon" and the $612-million global success of his self-financed 2004 film "The Passion of the Christ"— though a divorce from Robyn Gibson, his wife of 28 years and mother to seven of his children, and now potentially more child support payments for his and Grigorieva's infant daughter, could diminish his personal wealth.

Thomson said that although comebacks are in this country's DNA, a certain type of scandal could irrevocably ding a public figure, as he believes Woody Allen's relationship with his former girlfriend's daughter did for many of the director's female fans. And in some cases, Thomson added, the damage could be much worse. "The American public is sentimental and fond of forgiving, but it's not automatic," he said. "I don't think O.J. Simpson will ever make another movie."