Mel Gibson, no stranger to controversy, has done himself a doozy after a Friday morning DUI arrest allegedly spiraled into the anti-Semetic rant heard ’round Hollywood.
It all started in the early morning hours on Friday, when LA County officers pulled Gibson over in Malibu for driving 87 mph in a 45 mph zone. A breath test verified that the Oscar-winner had a blood-alcohol level of 0.12 percent, according to police.
Has Gibson put his "Apocalypto" in jeopardy?
When officers told him he would be taken to jail for drunk driving, the intoxicated Gibson launched into a tirade of explicit language. According to website TMZ.com, he also attempted to run back to his Lexus when asked to enter the police car, and was promptly caught and handcuffed.
In the police report (first reported by TMZ and then verified by the LA Times), the arresting officer claims that Gibson, once detained, launched into a threatening and expletive-filled tirade against the officer. In the officer’s words, "Gibson almost continually [sic] threatened me saying he ‘owns Malibu’ and will spend all of his money to ‘get even’ with me."
Most damaging were Gibson’s next rantings. From TMZ.com:
"F*****g Jews… The Jews are responsible for all the wars in the world." Gibson then asked the deputy, "Are you a Jew?"
Gibson spent the night in the drunk tank, where he allegedly continued to spew offensive remarks, threatened to urinate in his cell, and damaged a telephone.
An early report claimed that a complete police report, detailing Gibson’s inflammatory remarks, was initially sanitized by officials in order to avoid inciting public backlash, in part because of the current situation in the Middle East as well as Gibson’s previous anti-Semetic controversy stemming from 2004’s "The Passion Of The Christ." An investigation into this potential cover-up has been launched to discover if Gibson was given preferential treatment.
Gibson sparked controversy before with 2004’s "The Passion Of The Christ"
Unfortunately for him, word of Gibson’s alcohol-fueled hijinks spread quickly over the weekend, leaving many in question of the increasingly iconoclast actor-director’s future. In a town like Hollywood, it’s not the alcohol abuse or the drunk driving that’s the problem; while such vices are forgivable, many believe Gibson’s incendiary anti-Semetic comments to be devastatingly reprehensible.
In her Risky Biz blog, Hollywood Reporter columnist Anne Thompson posted one of the first reports on Gibson’s weekend antics and the huge obstacle ahead of him (as well as distributor Disney), as he releases his next ambitious pic, "Apocalypto," this December:
"Gibson will need to set the record straight and make things right as best he can. But considerable damage as been done."
Around the Tinseltown interweb, some are considerably harsher on Gibson. Blogging on The Huffington Post, agent-to-the-stars Ari Emanuel (the infamous inspiration for Jeremy Piven’s character on "Entourage") rejects Gibson’s post-arrest apology, and calls for an industry-wide boycott of Gibson:
"People in the entertainment community, whether Jew or gentile, need to demonstrate that they understand how much is at stake in this by professionally shunning Mel Gibson and refusing to work with him, even if it means a sacrifice to their bottom line.
There are times in history when standing up against bigotry and racism is more important than money."
Another telling opinion, from the AP:
""It’s a nuclear disaster for him," said publicist Michael Levine, who has represented Michael Jackson and Charlton Heston, among others. "I don’t see how he can restore himself.""
