Gibson asks for Jewish forgiveness, but TV show axed
By Jenny Booth and agencies
The police mugshot of Gibson after he was arrested for drunk driving
Mel Gibson has issued a lengthy apology to the Jewish community today asking for forgiveness over his anti-Semitic tirade during a drink driving episode and requesting a meeting with Jewish leaders "to discern the appropriate path for healing."
In a statement, which is now his second apology over the affair, the star says he is not a bigot, and hatred of any kind goes against his faith.
"There is no excuse, nor should there be any tolerance, for anyone who thinks or expresses any kind of anti-Semitic remark. I want to apologise specifically to everyone in the Jewish community for the vitriolic and harmful words that I said to a law enforcement officer the night I was arrested on a DUI charge," the statement read.
"The tenets of what I profess to believe necessitate that I exercise charity and tolerance as a way of life," it went on.
"Every human being is God’s child, and if I wish to honour my God I have to honour his children. But please know from my heart that I am not an anti-Semite. I am not a bigot. Hatred of any kind goes against my faith."
The Oscar-winning actor launched into the tirade after he was arrested on suspicion of drink-driving on the Pacific Coast highway in the early hours of Friday, allegedly doing 87mph with a part-drunk bottle of tequila in a brown paper bag on the back seat of his car.
It emerged today that the ABC television network has cancelled a mini-series about the Holocaust it was developing with Gibson, because of the confrontation.
The series was to have been based on a memoir about a Dutch Jew during the Second World War and made by Gibson's Icon Productions company, the Wall Street Journal reported today, quoting an unnamed ABC spokesman.
A spokesperson for ABC, which is owned by Walt Disney, confirmed that the project was being pulled, telling the paper that it had been two years and the network still had not seen a script. The spokesman declined to say whether the decision was motivated by Gibson's rant.
In today’s statement, Gibson also recounts how he has begun an ongoing programme of recover from his alcoholic tendencies - and it is something he says he cannot do alone.
"I am in the process of understanding where those vicious words came from during that drunken display, and I am asking the Jewish community, whom I have personally offended, to help me on my journey through recovery. Again, I am reaching out to the Jewish community for its help. I know there will be many in that community who will want nothing to do with me, and that would be understandable. But I pray that that door is not forever closed."
According to the arresting officer's original report, Gibson tried to escape when invited to sit in the back of the patrol car, and was belligerent and maudlin by turns, banging his head against a seat and bemoaning that his life was "f*****d". He also called a female officer "sugar tits".
"Mr Gibson almost continually threatened me, saying he 'owned Malibu' and will 'get even' with me," wrote Deputy James Mee, of the LA County Sheriff's Department.
"He blurted out a barrage of anti-Semitic remarks about 'f***ing Jews'. He called out, 'the Jews are responsible for all the wars in the world'. He then asked: 'Are you a Jew?'
"His conduct concerned and frightened me to a point, I called ahead to the station requesting a sergeant meet the arrival of my patrol car."
On Saturday Gibson issued his first apology, denouncing the things he said as untrue and despicable, and revealing that he had suffered from alcoholism all his adult life. He has since checked into a rehabilitation clinic.
The actor-director, whose film The Passion of Christ was criticised for blaming the Jews for killing Jesus, holds strong conservative Catholic religious and political views.
Deputy Mee, who happens to be Jewish, told the AP news agency yesterday that he had considered it a routine arrest and did not take any comments made by Gibson seriously.
"I don’t take pride in hurting Mr Gibson," said Deputy Mee. "What I had hoped out of this is that he would think twice before he gets behind the wheel of a car and was drinking. I don’t want to ruin his career. I don’t want to defame him in any way or hurt him."
He would not comment specifically on what Gibson said. "That stuff is booze talking," the deputy said in an interview outside his home.
"There’s two things that booze does. It amplifies your basic personality. If you are a laid-back kind of person, just an easy going kind of person, booze is going to amplify that and you’ll be just sitting around going how it’s a wonderful day. But, if you are high-strung person, it’s going to amplify that and all the bad things are going to come out."
The actor's early apology appears so far to have limited the damage to his Hollywood career, despite the ABC move.
Disney’s movie studio arm still plans to release Gibson’s self-financed Mayan-language film Apocalypto in December, Hollywood’s trade papers reported, and Slate.com, a movie industry website, quoted Oren Aviv, the Walt Disney Studios president, as saying that he accepted Gibson’s apology.
"The incident was a horrible, horrible blow to his public image," said Peter Montoya, a public image consultant. He remained optimistic, however, that Gibson can prevail.
"I don’t foresee that spinning out of control, like Tom Cruise, or Nick Nolte. I think it’s going to fade away. The basic rules when you’re a public figure and you make a mistake: you apologise, you apologise early. I think he did that, he apologised, himself. He did the right thing so far and I think he’s going to do more in the coming months."
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article...294109,00.html
