The two-minute clip of Mel Gibson using a racial slur and calling his ex-girlfriend a “whore” during an argument are unlikely to be the last ugly words the public hears from the actor.
RadarOnline.com, the celebrity Web site that posted the recording on Friday, says there’s more where that came from.
PHOTO: AFP
For 10 days, the site has posted written transcripts of secret recordings it said Gibson’s former girlfriend, Russian singer Oksana Grigorieva, had made. The snippet released on Friday is the first audio of the confrontations that have been aired.
The clip includes segments in which a voice that sounds distinctly like the Academy Award winner is heard telling Grigorieva that she is dressing too provocatively and that it would be her fault if she were raped. He uses the N-word, a racial epithet, at one point, and the recording is laced with his profanity.
Shortly after the posting, entertainment news outlets reported that Gibson had been dropped by talent agency William Morris Endeavor, although that decision appeared to have been made days ago. The agency did not return phone calls and an e-mail seeking comment.
David Perel, RadarOnline’s founder and executive vice president, said the site had heard “a substantial portion” of 30 minutes of recordings Grigorieva had made. Perel said more audio clips will likely be released in coming days.
The site reported the 40-year-old made the recordings because she was afraid Gibson might harm her.
The Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department is investigating allegations that Gibson was involved in a domestic violence incident with Grigorieva, with whom he has an eight-month-old daughter. That inquiry is expected to take several weeks before it reaches prosecutors, who will decide whether to press charges.
Gibson’s camp, for its part, remained silent on Friday about the recording. Spokesman Alan Nierob did not issue a comment on the audio’s contents.
This is the second high-profile incident in which Gibson has been accused of using slurs and degrading women. He apologized after his drunken driving arrest in 2006 after it was revealed by another celebrity Web site, TMZ, that he had made anti-Semitic and sexist comments.
In the recordings released on Friday, the actor is heard criticizing Grigorieva, 40, for the way she dresses. He accuses her of lying to him about having breast implants.
“They just look stupid,” Gibson tells her at one point in the recording. “Keep them if you want to. They look like a Vegas bitch, a Vegas whore.” “You look like a [expletive] bitch in heat, and if you get raped by a pack of [N-word], it will be your fault,” Gibson is heard telling Grigorieva. “You provoked it. You are provocatively dressed.” It is unclear when the recording was made or in what context. It opens with Gibson discussing breast-feeding of their now eight-month-old daughter. Toward the end, Gibson indicates he is done with the relationship.
“I don’t trust you,” the actor is heard saying. “I don’t love you. I don’t want you.” The former couple have been locked in a bitter custody dispute in Los Angeles. Records in the court case, which may include the audio recordings, remain sealed.
Perel said RadarOnline has verified it is Gibson on the recording.
The Web site did not say how it obtained the tapes. Perel said the site did not pay for the recordings and that they did not come from Grigorieva.
He said the site felt it was an important story to publish, despite the disturbing content. He said in some of the recordings, Gibson and Grigorieva’s infant daughter can be heard screaming in the background.
“We felt it was so newsworthy and so explosive we simply had to report what we heard,” Perel said.
“It is shocking, not only for content — which is horrific — but for tone,” he said. “It is one of the most vile things we have ever heard.”
In other news, Lady Gaga’s exclusion from the best new artist category at this year’s Grammys has caused the Recording Academy to change eligibility requirements for the next ceremony.
The change was announced on Wednesday.
Although Lady Gaga was the most popular new artist of 2009, she was ineligible for a best new artist nomination. Her hit Just Dance had been nominated in 2008, before she was a platinum-selling act, and previous Grammy nominees can’t be nominated for best new artist.
The rule change allows previous Grammy nominees to be eligible, as long as the artist hasn’t released an entire album and doesn’t win.
Jennifer Lopez has canceled a concert planned for the Turkish-occupied part of Cyprus after criticism that the appearance would make a political statement, the entertainment Web site TMZ.com reported last week.
Lopez was to perform on July 24 at a new hotel and casino in Turkish-occupied northern Cyprus, but the plans drew criticism, including from the US-based American Hellenic Educational Progressive Association, which claimed the concert would lend credence to the 1974 invasion by Turkey, which resulted in a partition of the island.
Association president Nicholas Karacostas protested that Lopez’s appearance would “be used to lend credence to an illegal entity recognized only by Turkey internationally, and that is unfortunate.”
Cyprus has been divided since Turkey occupied the north in response to an Athens-engineered coup in Nicosia aimed at uniting the Mediterranean island with Greece.— Agencies
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