“I was pretty much nonexistent in Hollywood at the time, and he stood up and spoke for me,” the “Lethal Weapon” actor said of the “Iron Man” star.
Mel Gibson is thankful to this day that his friend and Air America costar Robert Downey Jr. stood up for him after his headline-making 2006 arrest in Malibu.
In a new Esquire profile of Downey, Gibson expressed his appreciation for the Oppenheimer star’s support. “One time, I got into a bit of a sticky situation where it kind of ended my career,” he said. “I was drunk in the back of a police car and I said some stupid s—, and all of a sudden: blacklisted. I’m the poster boy for canceled.”
The Braveheart actor and filmmaker was referring to his infamous DUI arrest, during which, according to a police report, “Gibson blurted out a barrage of anti-Semitic remarks about ‘(profanity redacted) Jews.’ Gibson yelled out, ‘The Jews are responsible for all the wars in the world.’ Gibson then asked, ‘Are you a Jew?'”
In the Esquire piece, Gibson went on to recall how Downey — who also thanked Gibson earlier this year in his SAG Award acceptance speech — helped him get back on his feet.
“A couple of years into that he invited me to some kind of award he was getting — we always had this kind of seesaw thing, where if he was on the wagon, I was falling off, and if I was on the wagon, he was falling off,” he said. “So I was pretty much nonexistent in Hollywood at the time, and he stood up and spoke for me. It was a bold and generous and kind gesture. I loved him for that.”
Read more here from Entertainment Weekly.
