Mel Gibson

What was the Accusation?

On July 28, 2006 at 3:10 a.m. famed celebrity actor Mel Gibson was pulled over for speeding along the Pacific Coast Highway in Malibu, California. Gibson was traveling at 80 miles per hour, 35 miles per hour over the legal speed limit. The police gave Gibson an alcohol breath test and a field sobriety test. They discovered that his blood alcohol level was .12, far exceeding the state’s legal limit. Deputy James Mee, one of the responding officers, claimed that Gibson was irate, saying “My life is f****d.” The deputy then instructed Gibson that he would not use his cuffs if Gibson would cooperate. Gibson responded: “I’m not going to get in your car” and proceeded to make a mad dash toward his own car. The officers subdued Gibson, cuffed him, and placed him in the back of the police car. Gibson became even more irate and issued a series of inflammatory comments to the police. He is reported to have told the officers: “F*****g Jews. The Jews are responsible for all the wars in the world.” Gibson then asked one of the officers, “Are you a Jew?” He then said to Deputy Mee, “I own Malibu” and “I will spend all of my money to get even with you.” A female sergeant approached Gibson and he said to her: “What do you think you’re looking at sugar tits?” Once Gibson’s antics became front page news, the actor felt compelled to issue a series of apologies. First, Gibson issued a statement to the media through his publicist saying he was “out of control” and “deeply ashamed.” He issued another statement a few days after the first, this time directly to the Jewish community for his “vitriolic and harmful words.” After issuing the two shorter statements through the press, Gibson did not offer another formal apology for nearly 2 months, when he would appear on Good Morning America. Diane Sawyer asked Gibson a series of questions about the incident, to which Gibson stayed with his initial strategies. He again argued that he was “a little overwrought,” under “too much pressure,” and “impaired” due to the alcohol. Gibson continued to argue that he was “ashamed” of what he had said and “I’m not that. That’s not who I am.”

Key Apologia Strategies:

Defeasibility, Mortification

Video

Transcript

Gibson’s Statement Through Publicist:

“I acted like a person completely out of control when I was arrested, and said things that I do not believe to be true and which are despicable. I am deeply ashamed of everything I said. Also, I take this opportunity to apologize to the deputies involved for my belligerent behavior. They have always been there for me in my community and indeed probably saved me from myself. I disgraced myself and my family with my behavior and for that I am truly sorry. I have battled with the disease of alcoholism for all of my adult life and profoundly regret my horrific relapse. I apologize for any behavior unbecoming of me in my inebriated state and have already taken necessary steps to ensure my return to health

Gibson’s Statement to the Jewish Community:

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 apologize 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.

I am a public person, and when I say something, either articulated and thought out, or blurted out in a moment of insanity, my words carry weight in the public arena. As a result, I must assume personal responsibility for my words and apologize directly to those who have been hurt and offended by those words.

The tenets of what I profess to believe necessitate that I exercise charity and tolerance as a way of life. Every human being is God’s child, and if I wish to honor my God I have to honor 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.

I’m not just asking for forgiveness. I would like to take it one step further, and meet with leaders in the Jewish community, with whom I can have a one on one discussion to discern the appropriate path for healing.

I have begun an ongoing program of recovery and what I am now realizing is that I cannot do it 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.

This is not about a film. Nor is it about artistic license. This is about real life and recognizing the consequences hurtful words can have. Its about existing in harmony in a world that seems to have gone mad.

Full Transcript of Gibson’s Interview on Good Morning America:

DIANE SAWYER (ABC NEWS)

(Off-camera) July 28?

MEL GIBSON (ACTOR)

Yes, a day to remember.

DIANE SAWYER (ABC NEWS)

(Off-camera) How did that day start?

MEL GIBSON (ACTOR)

Much like any other day. I went to work, you know, saw a bunch of people. I had a screening, I met with a friend of mine. He screened his film for me.

DIANE SAWYER (ABC NEWS)

(Off-camera) And then what?

MEL GIBSON (ACTOR)

Well, of course, I guess I must have been a little overwrought. So, and that’s what happens. Too much pressure, too much work. You, you do things that, that go against good judgment. So that’s it. A few drinks later and I was in the back of a police car wailing. So…

DIANE SAWYER (ABC NEWS)

(Off-camera) A few drinks later. Do you know how many?

MEL GIBSON (ACTOR)

No, I don’t. But I know it was tequila.

DIANE SAWYER (ABC NEWS)

(Off-camera) How long had you been drinking again?

MEL GIBSON (ACTOR)

A couple of months. Years go by and you’re fine. And then all of a sudden in a heartbeat, in an instant, on an impulse, somebody shoves a glass of Mezcal in front of your nose and says, ‘It’s from Oaxaca.” And you go (makes noise) and it’s burning its way through your esophagus and you go, ‘Oh, man, what did I do that for? Can’t put the toothpaste back in the tube.”

DIANE SAWYER (ABC NEWS)

(Off-camera) Were you drinking from the open bottle of tequila in the car?

MEL GIBSON (ACTOR)

Yeah. I had a couple slugs, yeah.

DIANE SAWYER (ABC NEWS)

(Off-camera) So how drunk were you?

MEL GIBSON (ACTOR)

It’s not a question of how drunk you are or you’re, you’re impaired. Your judgment is impaired enough to do insane things like try and drive at high speeds. Even a couple of drinks, you lose all humility, everything. It’s just, you become a braggart and a blowhard and…

DIANE SAWYER (ABC NEWS)

(Off-camera) Yeah. One of the things you said was about owning Malibu.

MEL GIBSON (ACTOR)

Yeah. Oh, yeah. Oh, right. Yes. I, I, owning, I own this place, as I sat in the back of a police car with my hands cuffed.

DIANE SAWYER (ABC NEWS)

(Voiceover) And then, as the officer arrested him, a tirade against Jews.

DIANE SAWYER (ABC NEWS)

(Off-camera) Take me back to that moment, as you remember it, then. Officer James Mee? Did you know him? Did you know he was Jewish?

MEL GIBSON (ACTOR)

No. I don’t think so. I don’t think so. I found out later. But that’s, you know, all (inaudible).

DIANE SAWYER (ABC NEWS)

(Off-camera) Why would you have asked him that?

MEL GIBSON (ACTOR)

I don’t know. It’s, you see, it’s all, I didn’t know if he was or wasn’t. I mean, I said horrible things to him. And he was pretty patient.

DIANE SAWYER (ABC NEWS)

(Off-camera) These are the words.

DIANE SAWYER (ABC NEWS)

(Voiceover) How horrible does he think they were? I read to him the officer’s account of the words he used that night. ”Expletive’ Jews.” And to Officer Mee, ‘Are you a Jew?” And…

DIANE SAWYER (ABC NEWS)

(Off-camera) ‘The Jews are responsible for all the wars in the world.” Are those anti-Semitic words?

MEL GIBSON (ACTOR)

Oh, yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. It sounds horrible. And I’m ashamed of that. That came out of my mouth. And I’m not that. That’s not who I am, you know.

DIANE SAWYER (ABC NEWS)

(Off-camera) We have a world in which alcohol is used to excuse behavior.

MEL GIBSON (ACTOR)

Sure. And it’s always, well, alcohol is used to kill pain. And, and it is no excuse, by the way. It’s not a good enough excuse.

DIANE SAWYER (ABC NEWS)

(Off-camera) If the police officer had been black…

MEL GIBSON (ACTOR)

Maybe. I don’t know.

DIANE SAWYER (ABC NEWS)

(Off-camera) What would you have said?

MEL GIBSON (ACTOR)

Who knows? I would have, I’d have to get loaded again and tell you and then be in those conditions again, because it’s unpredictable what’s gonna come flying out.

DIANE SAWYER (ABC NEWS)

(Voiceover) At the police station, still angry, he said to a female sergeant, ‘What do you think you’re looking at?” Adding a reference to her breasts.

DIANE SAWYER (ABC NEWS)

(Off-camera) I’ve heard people say, you know, I am a, angry drunk, fill in the blank. I am a…

MEL GIBSON (ACTOR)

Happy drunk until I snap for no reason and just turn.

DIANE SAWYER (ABC NEWS)

(Off-camera) Where does this anger come from?

MEL GIBSON (ACTOR)

I have no idea. I just have been angry all my life. And I try not to have it manifest itself, you know. You, you try and keep a lock on it. And it really isn’t, it’s real back there someplace and, you know, I’ve talked to people about that. Where is it coming from? I can get really mad about, I can murder inanimate objects. You should see me choking the toaster in the morning, you know, so I’m kind of a work in progress right now. So you got me a little green. See? I mean, I just got out of the straitjacket with the messy hair and everything.

DIANE SAWYER (ABC NEWS)

(Voiceover) The mug shot.

MEL GIBSON (ACTOR)

Yeah. The mug shot. The first thing that went through my mind was like, Nick Nolte’s photograph. So I did my best with a finger combing in the water fountain, to sort of like splash a little water on my face, to not take one of those hideous mug shots because I knew it would be around. So, vanity, vanity won out.

DIANE SAWYER (ABC NEWS)

(Voiceover) The first time Gibson was arrested drunk was 1984, after rear-ending a car. He entered AA in 1991. But he has talked about his suicidal despair at relapsing. His family has had to endure it all. And this time, the added horror of watching the news about the bigoted words.

MEL GIBSON (ACTOR)

Oh, I just went home and some of my kids were there and I talked to them for a little bit and it was a little, little rough that morning. So I chased it down with a few cold ones, you know, in the full knowledge…

DIANE SAWYER (ABC NEWS)

(Off-camera) That morning?

MEL GIBSON (ACTOR)

Oh, yeah. It was kind of unbearable to face. So it was something I thought, ‘Well, this is it. This’ll be the end of it but I just have to get through this morning,” you know.

DIANE SAWYER (ABC NEWS)

(Off-camera) But wait a minute. You talked to your kids while you were slugging down more to get through it?

MEL GIBSON (ACTOR)

Yeah. You’re not operating well. But you know you have to do something. And, I mean, I wasn’t sort of flashing it in front of them or anything but…

DIANE SAWYER (ABC NEWS)

(Off-camera) What do you say? Is – ‘I’m sorry?”

MEL GIBSON (ACTOR)

Yeah, you do. I’ve apologized more than anyone I know. So it’s getting old. And…

DIANE SAWYER (ABC NEWS)

(Off-camera) How long is your list of apologies necessary?

MEL GIBSON (ACTOR)

Oh, oh, huge. For my whole life.

DIANE SAWYER (ABC NEWS)

(Off-camera) How did you tell your wife?

MEL GIBSON (ACTOR)

I just told her, you know, straight out. Slipped again. Yeah. And she was, like, of course, you know. She doesn’t like that, so, but she, you know, was gracious, compassionate.

DIANE SAWYER (ABC NEWS)

(Voiceover) Her name is Robin. They have been married 26 years and have seven children.

DIANE SAWYER (ABC NEWS)

(Off-camera) You said once that she gets the medals because she is the one who hopes.

MEL GIBSON (ACTOR)

Yeah. Sure. Yeah. She hopes. She bears the brunt. And it’s no different this time. So there you have it.

DIANE SAWYER (ABC NEWS)

(Off-camera) How many times can you ask her?

MEL GIBSON (ACTOR)

Oh, boy. I don’t know. Good question. I don’t know the answer to it.

DIANE SAWYER (ABC NEWS)

(Voiceover) He says the torment is every time that you relapse it’s harder to fight your way back.

MEL GIBSON (ACTOR)

The risk of everything, life, limb, family, is not enough to keep you from it. That’s the, that’s the hell of it. You are indefensible against it if your nature is one of alcoholism.

DIANE SAWYER (ABC NEWS)

(Off-camera) That you will sacrifice…

MEL GIBSON (ACTOR)

Anything. So you must keep that under arrest, in a sense. But you cannot do it of yourself. And people can help, yeah. But it’s God. You’ve got to go there. You’ve got to do it. And/or you won’t survive. That’s all there is to it. Look, this whole experience in a way, for me, I’m sort of viewing it now as a kind of a blessing because…

DIANE SAWYER (ABC NEWS)

(Off-camera) A blessing?

MEL GIBSON (ACTOR)

Yeah. Well, firstly, I got stopped before I did any real damage to anyone else. Thank God for that. I didn’t hurt myself, you know. I didn’t leave my kids fatherless. That’s good, that’s a blessing, okay? The other thing is sometimes you need a cold bucket of water in the face to sort of snap to because you’re dealing with a, a sort of the, a malady of the soul, an obsession of the mind and a physical allergy. And some people need a big tap on the shoulder. In my case, public humiliation on a global scale seems to be what was required.

DIANE SAWYER (ABC NEWS)

(Voiceover) Humiliation for him. Outrage from others. And a lot of questions about alcohol revealing who you really are. People say alcohol just liberates you to say what you really feel. It’s what you really feel. It’s not changing.

MEL GIBSON (ACTOR)

Well, that’s patently false, I think, because it’s like, alcohol loosens your tongue and makes you act, say and behave in a way that is not you.

DIANE SAWYER (ABC NEWS)

(Off-camera) Somebody said, ‘I do not believe tequila can turn an unbiased person into a raging anti-Semite. Alcohol removes inhibitions in vino veritas.”

MEL GIBSON (ACTOR)

Oh, yeah. Well, that’s the old Roman saying, in vino veritas, yeah. Well, they don’t know what they’re talking about, it’s as simple as that. Or they don’t have the problem and they don’t understand it.

DIANE SAWYER (ABC NEWS)

(Off-camera) Again, there are lots of people who get drunk and don’t say anti-Semitic things.

MEL GIBSON (ACTOR)

Oh, yes there are. People say all sorts of horrible things…

DIANE SAWYER (ABC NEWS)

(Off-camera) No. But they don’t…

MEL GIBSON (ACTOR)

…about anything.

DIANE SAWYER (ABC NEWS)

(Off-camera) Yeah.

MEL GIBSON (ACTOR)

And not, not just anti-Semitic things. They say – horrendous things. They say, they say to their parents, ‘I hate you and I want you to die.” And, you know, I mean, they don’t mean that stuff. It’s, it’s the stuff that comes out when you’re loaded. It’s, it’s extreme.

DIANE SAWYER (ABC NEWS)

(Off-camera) But if it’s not in you, is it gonna come out?

MEL GIBSON (ACTOR)

It has to, it has have some kind of place somewhere. And you have to ask where is it coming from? Where is it coming from?

DIANE SAWYER (ABC NEWS)

(Voiceover) And that is exactly where we will begin tomorrow.

DIANE SAWYER (ABC NEWS)

(Off-camera) So he admits they were bigoted statements. He admits that they were in him. Tomorrow we debate where they came from. And every viewer will decide for themselves how they feel about his answers.

DIANE SAWYER (ABC NEWS)

(Off-camera) That’s right. Mel Gibson, part two this morning. As we said, it is a phenomenon of American life that a Hollywood actor and director has become the fulcrum for discussion of some of the toughest issues in American society. For instance, do you give the same weight to an anti-Semitic tirade while drunk as anti-Semitism while sober? And since Gibson acknowledged yesterday that even if you are drunk, the words have to come from someplace inside you. Where? In the past two months, he’s been sober in AA meetings five days a week and he says he’s begun a series of conversations, starting with Jewish people closest to him and some community leaders, more to come. He says he genuinely wants to learn why that night he committed what he calls the sin of bigotry.

DIANE SAWYER (ABC NEWS)

(Voiceover) As everyone knows, Mel Gibson is devoutly religious, which is what inspired him to make ‘The Passion of the Christ.” His church is a Catholic splinter group called Traditionalist Catholics who feel the modern Catholic Church has abandoned the real faith. His father, 88-year-old Hutton Gibson, is well known for his writings attacking the Vatican. The Traditionalist Church believes in the Latin mass and literal reading of the Bible. And Gibson has talked about a war of biblical proportion. Though he says no one can say when it will happen or where, which brings us back to the night of July 28th, and what he says may have been in his mind as he drunkenly said, ‘Jews are responsible for all the wars in the world.”

MEL GIBSON (ACTOR)

Now, maybe it was just that very day that Lebanon and Israel were at it.

DIANE SAWYER (ABC NEWS)

(Voiceover) It was the 17th day of the raging war in Lebanon. And there were a lot of people worrying that the crisis was escalating out of control.

MEL GIBSON (ACTOR)

And since I was a kid, in the ’60s, ’70s, ’80s, ’90s, and now in the new millennium, you can read of an-ever escalating kind of conflagration over there in the Middle East. I remember thinking when I was 20, ‘Man, that place is gonna drag us all into the black hole,” you know, just the difficulty over there. And you start thinking, ‘Will I ever see my grandchildren grow up, you know, or what’s gonna become of the world, who’s gonna press the button?” And that’s fear-related. Okay? So, you know, you have your own fears about these things.

DIANE SAWYER (ABC NEWS)

(Off-camera) But there’s a difference between saying that place is a tinderbox and the constellation of things happening there could take us all down, and saying the Jews are responsible for all the wars.

MEL GIBSON (ACTOR)

Well, I did say that.

DIANE SAWYER (ABC NEWS)

(Off-camera) The Jews are responsible.

MEL GIBSON (ACTOR)

Well, strictly speaking, that’s, that’s not true because it takes two to tango.

DIANE SAWYER (ABC NEWS)

(Off-camera) What are the Jews responsible for?

MEL GIBSON (ACTOR)

What are they responsible for? I think that they’re not blameless in the conflict. There’s been aggression and retaliation and aggression. It’s just part of being in conflict and being at war. So they’re not blameless. Of course, they’re not. Okay. Now, when you’re loaded, you know, the balance of how you see things, it comes out the wrong way. I know that it’s not as black-and-white as that. I know that you just can’t, you know, roar about things like that, that it’s wrong.

DIANE SAWYER (ABC NEWS)

(Off-camera) A lot of people are gonna say, ‘Wait a minute. He’s still blaming the Jews.”

MEL GIBSON (ACTOR)

No. But I didn’t say that.

DIANE SAWYER (ABC NEWS)

(Off-camera) ‘He’s still blaming Israel.”

MEL GIBSON (ACTOR)

No, no, no, but, did I say that?

DIANE SAWYER (ABC NEWS)

(Voiceover) After several rounds on the Middle East, he said this is his statement of his true feelings.

MEL GIBSON (ACTOR)

Let me be real clear here in sobriety, sitting here in front of you, on national television, that I don’t believe that Jews are responsible for all the wars in the world. I mean, that’s an outrageous, drunken statement.

DIANE SAWYER (ABC NEWS)

(Voiceover) So was something else eating at him that night? He says he has also realized he had been harboring an old resentment.

MEL GIBSON (ACTOR)

And the other thing, the other place it may have come from is, you know, as you know, a couple of years ago I released the film ‘The Passion.” Now, even before anyone saw a frame of film for an entire year, I was subjected to a pretty brutal sort of public beating. And during the course of that, I think I probably had my rights violated in many different ways as an American, you know, as an artist, as a Christian, as, just as a human being, you know.

CLIP FROM “THE PASSION OF THE CHRIST”

DIANE SAWYER (ABC NEWS)

(Voiceover) It was the movie that became a kind of Rorschach test.

ACTOR (MALE)

(Speaking in foreign language).

DIANE SAWYER (ABC NEWS)

(Voiceover) Gibson and tens of millions of Christians who saw the film say it was simply evoking the New Testament version of Jews, Romans and the brutal crucifixion of Jesus. But the leaders of several Jewish organizations launched a campaign, arguing that Gibson had seeded the film with deliberately anti-Semitic images, and they warned that Gibson might be inciting a new wave of hatred, even violence, against Jews. He says that never happened.

MEL GIBSON (ACTOR)

The film came out, it was released and you could have heard a pin drop, you know. Even the crickets weren’t chirping. But the other thing I never heard was one single word of apology. I thought I dealt with that stuff, all forgiveness. But the human heart’s a funny thing, sometimes you can bear the scars of resentment and it will come out, you know, when you’re overwrought and you take a few drinks. So…

DIANE SAWYER (ABC NEWS)

(Off-camera) Is there hate in your heart? Is there anger in your heart?

MEL GIBSON (ACTOR)

There was anger for it, from that, I think, because I felt that I was unjustly treated. My resentment stemmed from certain individuals treating me in a certain way.

DIANE SAWYER (ABC NEWS)

(Voiceover) But we asked about those people he thought should apologize to him. Can they now argue they were right about what he is inside?

DIANE SAWYER (ABC NEWS)

(Off-camera) Can you say anti-Semitic things and not be anti-Semitic? Can you say intolerant things and not be an intolerant person?

MEL GIBSON (ACTOR)

I don’t know. I don’t know the answer to that question. Because one changes from day to day and there are different forces exercised on you that may or may not, and people every day say things they don’t mean and things they don’t feel. They may feel them temporarily. I mean, we’re, we’re, we’re all broken.

DIANE SAWYER (ABC NEWS)

(Voiceover) And he says he is now learning more about those who were hearing his words. In an earlier apology, he had asked the Jewish community for dialogue and help.

MEL GIBSON (ACTOR)

I heard back that a woman who had read the apology actually wept with relief. Now, that sort of hit me. I was, like, relief? Oh, my God, she was afraid. She was terrified. And, wow, you know? I don’t think I realized until, like, a couple of, four days later, five days later, that what I did was press a big fear button.

DIANE SAWYER (ABC NEWS)

(Off-camera) You didn’t realize that?

MEL GIBSON (ACTOR)

I didn’t realize the level of fear that, that was there.

DIANE SAWYER (ABC NEWS)

(Off-camera) What did you think it was?

MEL GIBSON (ACTOR)

The, it was just the stupid ramblings of a drunkard, you know. And, I guess, I had to sort of think, well, hang on, it’s conceivable that they think I could be the next goose-stepping maniac to come into their neighborhood, you know. I don’t know.

DIANE SAWYER (ABC NEWS)

(Voiceover) But for several years, there has been one other question that has plagued him, the fact that his father, Hutton Gibson, has famously, publicly, expressed doubts that six million Jews were really murdered in the Holocaust.

DIANE SAWYER (ABC NEWS)

(Off-camera) And the last time I went down this trail, you…

MEL GIBSON (ACTOR)

Yeah. I bit your head off.

DIANE SAWYER (ABC NEWS)

(Voiceover) It was three years ago in an interview, Mel Gibson began by telling us he does believe six million Jews were murdered.

MEL GIBSON (ACTOR)

It was an atrocity of monumental proportion.

DIANE SAWYER (ABC NEWS)

(Voiceover) But when we asked him to repudiate the assertions of his dad…

MEL GIBSON (ACTOR)

He’s my father. Got to leave it alone, Diane. Got to leave it alone.

DIANE SAWYER (ABC NEWS)

(Off-camera) But I wanna go back because your father has been on the record, this is not an assumption. He has been on the record saying things like the Holocaust, quote, ‘mostly fiction.” That it’s been hyped out of proportion.

MEL GIBSON (ACTOR)

Yeah. Well, we’re talking about me here right now, and me taking responsibility for my words and actions. And, I’m not, I’m certainly not gonna use him to sort of put anything off of me.

DIANE SAWYER (ABC NEWS)

(Off-camera) Even if it’s the explanation for what happened that night?

MEL GIBSON (ACTOR)

It isn’t the explanation for what happened that night. It isn’t. It has nothing to do with it. It’s, that’s in my own heart. I was taught that there are good and bad people of any race and creed, you know.

DIANE SAWYER (ABC NEWS)

(Off-camera) What’s the main thing we all need to do to bridge prejudice and bigotry, intolerance?

MEL GIBSON (ACTOR)

Have dinner. That’s it.

DIANE SAWYER (ABC NEWS)

(Off-camera) Talk?

MEL GIBSON (ACTOR)

Yeah. And hear.

DIANE SAWYER (ABC NEWS)

(Voiceover) But we asked about those in the Hollywood community who say it’s too late and he should be ostracized.

DIANE SAWYER (ABC NEWS)

(Off-camera) What do you feel about them?

MEL GIBSON (ACTOR)

Well, I feel sad because, you know, they’ve obviously been hurt and frightened and offended enough to feel that they have to do that and it’s their choice.

DIANE SAWYER (ABC NEWS)

(Voiceover) In the meantime, Gibson says he has to go on battling his old demons of rage and alcohol. And hoping, even if there’s not a Hollywood ending in sight, that somehow, somewhere, there’s at least another chance.

DIANE SAWYER (ABC NEWS)

(Off-camera) Somebody said to me once, ‘Pain is the precursor to change.”

MEL GIBSON (ACTOR)

Yeah. Who said that? Socrates?

DIANE SAWYER (ABC NEWS)

(Voiceover) In fact, it was Gibson himself.

DIANE SAWYER (ABC NEWS)

(Off-camera) How ashamed have you been?

MEL GIBSON (ACTOR)

Oh, quite ashamed. Yeah. And it’s, it’s, you know, that’s the price you pay because sometimes it’s what you need. Many people have reached out. My goodness. I mean, it’s, I’ve been overwhelmed. It almost choked me. I was so overwhelmed by the response of friends, family and, you know, even the Jewish community. I mean, the, the letters and stuff that came in were really encouraging. Sort of, you know, sort of broke my heart a little bit, so it’s like they understood. There’s a lot of compassion out there. So – that was kind of overwhelming for me. So it’s, and I’m, I don’t wanna disappoint anyone again, you know? And what I need to do to heal myself and to be assuring and allay the fears of others and to heal them if they had any heart, you know, any heart wounds from something I may have said. So this is the last thing I wanna be is that kind of monster.

DIANE SAWYER (ABC NEWS)

(Off-camera) So as we said yesterday, everyone will decide for themselves about Mel Gibson according to their own definitions of repentance, which we looked up. And by the way, at its Latin root, it means to suffer a deeper pain. A couple of other notes about him, by the way. We asked him if he was going to give some large sums of money to inter-religious causes. He said he is earmarking his donations privately. He does not believe in seeking public credit for what you give. And as you may have read, his ‘Holocaust” project with Disney was cancelled, but he says he may do it somewhere else and added that he did this interview now because he says he doesn’t want this issue ever to be used as publicity for the Disney film he has coming out later this year. And by the way, in the next hour we ask Elie Wiesel, Maya Angelou and others to address the topic of atonement. We’ll be back.

Sources

ABC Transcripts (2006, October 12). Diane Sawyer interviews Mel Gibson. Good Morning America. Available on Lexis-Nexis Academic Universe.

Gibson’s anti-Semitic tirade””alleged cover-up (2006, July 28).  TMZ. Retrieved from: http://www.tmz.com/2006/07/28/gibsons-anti-semitic-tirade-alleged-cover-up/

Mel Gibson’s apology to the Jewish community. (2006, August 1). Anti-Defamation League. Retrieved from: https://www.adl.org/news/letters/mel-gibsons-apology-to-the-jewish-community

Stein, K. A. (2010). Jewish antapologia in response to Mel Gibson’s multiple attempts at absolution.  Relevant Rhetoric, 1, 1-14.