LOS ANGELES – Mel Gibson has broken his silence on his damaging domestic violence scandal, calling the leak of angry personal phone calls with his then-girlfriend last year a “personal betrayal”.
The Oscar-winning director of Braveheartdescribed the leaked tapes, in which Gibson was heard ranting, swearing and threatening Russian girlfriend Oksana Grigorieva, "terribly humiliating and painful for my family". Gibson added that he did not care if he ever acted again.
"I've never treated anyone badly or in a discriminatory way based on their gender, race, religion or sexuality – period," Gibson told Hollywood journalist Allison Hope Weiner in a lengthy interview for website Deadline Hollywood yesterday.
Gibson last month pleaded no contest to a charge of hitting Grigorieva, the mother of his baby daughter, as their relationship broke down in early 2010.
He was sentenced to three years probation, a year of counselling and community service.
In his first public comments on the saga, Gibson said the tapes of phone calls leaked a year ago were edited, adding: “It’s one terribly awful moment in time, said to one person, in the span of one day and doesn’t represent what I truly believe or how I’ve treated people my entire life.”
Amid the fallout, Gibson's longtime manager left him, his movie The Beaverwas delayed for months, and actors on Hangover Part IIrefused to work with him.
The tapes were leaked to the media as Gibson was trying to make an acting comeback after making anti-Semitic remarks during a 2006 drunken driving arrest, and the end of his 28-year marriage. – (Reuters)