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Mel 'wanted to sober up'
08/08/2006 07:19 - (SA)
Sydney - Two women who saw Hollywood actor Mel Gibson shortly before his controversial drunk-driving arrest said he was acting like a "normal guy" and expressed shock at his "Jekyll and Hyde transformation".
In an interview with Australia's Daily Telegraph newspaper published on Tuesday, Julie Smith, 27, and Kimberley Lesak, 29, said Gibson "wasn't an angry drunk saying anti-Jewish things when we saw him".
A photograph of Gibson with his arms draped around the two women in Malibu's Moonshadows bar appeared in newspapers around the world.
Later that night, he was pulled over for alleged drunken driving and has since apologised for anti-Semitic comments he made to the arresting officer.
The women said a "very friendly" Gibson chatted with them about his wife and children after stopping off in a bar to "sober up".
"He floated around talking to everyone," Lesak, from Kentucky, was quoted as saying.
'He was not stumbling drunk'
"We now know he was over the legal limit, but at that point he was not stumbling drunk."
She said Gibson was terrified his wife Robyn would learn he had been drinking and went to the bar to "sober up".
"He had his head in his hands and was running his fingers through his hair saying, 'oh no,'" she was quoted by the newspaper as saying.
The TMZ.com celebrity website released a police report, in which the devout Catholic actor and director referred to "f...ing Jews" after his car was pulled over on July 28.
"The Jews are responsible for all the wars in the world," he was quoted as saying in the report after first asking the arresting police officer: "Are you a Jew?"
Smith said Gibson's anti-Semitic rant was at odds with his friendly demeanour in the bar.
"It was a Jekyll and Hyde transformation," she told the newspaper. "He wasn't an angry drunk saying anti-Jewish things when we saw him," Smith, from San Diego, said.
"He was being very friendly and you just kind of forgot he's this mega superstar."
Gibson, who won best film and best director Oscars for Braveheart, has checked into a detoxification programme and apologised to the Jewish community.
- SAPA
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South Africa
