Mel Gibson has a history of anti-semitic remarks, as the actor/producer once went on a tirade against Jews during a drunken arrest in 2006. Gibson was drinking and driving, and when the police officer pulled him over (and discovered a bottle of tequila on the floor), Gibson allegedly asked if he was a Jew and hurled anti-semitic remarks at him, including, "The Jews are responsible for all the wars in the world." He reportedly also asked they doctor the police officer's report to remove the fact that he made these anti-semitic comments. Gibson offered an apology shortly after the incident.
However it extends beyond this, as Gibson's father once stated that the Holocaust was fiction right before Gibson's The Passion of The Christ movie hit theatres. "It's all - maybe not all fiction - but most of it is," he said of the Holocaust, stating that the Jews were not gassed in concentration camps, but rather they were just there to work. He also alleged that 6 million Jews did not die in the Holocaust, instead, they "got up and left": "They simply got up and left! They were all over the Bronx and Brooklyn and Sydney, Australia, and Los Angeles."
You can clearly see the history of anti-semitism runs in the family. Today, Gibson is back in the news for new anti-semitic remarks, as well as homophobic remarks, he reportedly made to Winona Ryder.
The Jewish actress recently did an interview with The Sunday Times where she detailed a disturbing interaction with Gibson. Ryder was initially asked if she experienced any anti-semitism within Hollywood, to which she replied, "I have … in interesting ways...There are times when people have said, ‘Wait, you’re Jewish? But you’re so pretty!’ There was a movie that I was up for a long time ago, it was a period piece, and the studio head, who was Jewish, said I looked ‘too Jewish’ to be in a blue-blooded family."
She continued to detail the incident with Gibson, which occurred in the presence of Ryder's gay friend. "We were at a crowded party with one of my good friends," she said, "And Mel Gibson was smoking a cigar, and we’re all talking and he said to my friend, who’s gay, ‘Oh wait, am I gonna get AIDS?’ And then something came up about Jews, and he said, ‘You’re not an oven dodger, are you?’"
She says that he attempted to apologize later. Gibson has yet to respond to these allegations.
