Mel Gibson Will Be a Presenter at Golden Globes. Really, Hollywood?

Image by Getty Images
Golden Globes producers were “delighted to announce” that Mel Gibson will be among the presenters during this Sunday’s star-studded 73rd Golden Globes Awards. Really Hollywood Foreign Press?! Has everything been forgiven?
Let us refresh your memory.
The disgraced director and star is , DUI and domestic violence disputes with his ex-partner, Russian pianist Oksana Grigorieva.
In a 2006 drunk driving stop, Gibson said to his arresting officer, “Are you a Jew? Fucking Jews. The Jews are responsible for all the wars in the world.”
Gibson released a statement of apology shortly after the incident, “I want to apologize specifically to everyone in the Jewish community for the vitriolic and harmful words that I said to a law enforcement officer the night I was arrested on a DUI charge.”
But it’s diffcult to believe that he’s remorseful when you consider the fact that this was hardly his first anti-Semitic tirade, or his last.
When asked about his comments by Jewish Los Angeles KTLA 5 reporter, Sam Rubin, Gibson responded, “you got a dog in this fight?” Rubin did not say anything at first, but offered these comments to his viewers after the fact:
And according to actress Winona Ryder, when Gibson found out she was Jewish he called her an “oven-dodger.”
And then there’s always Gibson’s father, Hutton Gibson, a known Holocaust denier who claims that most of what historians say about the Holocaust is fiction. In a 2003 interview with the New York Times he said, “Go and ask an undertaker or the guy who operates the crematorium what it takes to get rid of a dead body. It takes one liter of petrol and 20 minutes. Now, 6 million?”
But there is one person who is pretty happy about this new development. Sharp-tongued comedian, and host of the Golden Globes, Ricky Gervais welcomed the news with his trademark irreverent humor.
Mel Gibson is presenting an award at The Golden Globes. Thank you Jesus. pic.twitter.com/70iCAqoraz
— Ricky Gervais (@rickygervais) January 5, 2016
The two have crossed paths before, when introducing Gibson in 2010, Gervais quipped, “I like drink as much as the next man, unless the next man is Mel Gibson.”
When Gervais was presenting at the Emmy’s later that year, he said, “He’s [Gibson] been through a lot. Not as much as the Jews,” to the sound of thunderous applause.
The Forward is free to read, but it isn’t free to produce

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward.
Now more than ever, American Jews need independent news they can trust, with reporting driven by truth, not ideology. We serve you, not any ideological agenda.
At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse.
This is a great time to support independent Jewish journalism you rely on. Make a gift today!
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
Support our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.
Most Popular
- 1
Culture Cardinals are Catholic, not Jewish — so why do they all wear yarmulkes?
- 2
News School Israel trip turns ‘terrifying’ for LA students attacked by Israeli teens
- 3
Fast Forward Ye debuts ‘Heil Hitler’ music video that includes a sample of a Hitler speech
- 4
Fast Forward Student suspended for ‘F— the Jews’ video defends himself on antisemitic podcast
In Case You Missed It
-
Yiddish קאָנצערט לכּבֿוד דעם ייִדישן שרײַבער און רעדאַקטאָר באָריס סאַנדלערConcert honoring Yiddish writer and editor Boris Sandler
דער בעל־שׂימחה האָט יאָרן לאַנג געדינט ווי דער רעדאַקטאָר פֿונעם ייִדישן פֿאָרווערטס.
-
Fast Forward Trump’s new pick for surgeon general blames the Nazis for pesticides on our food
-
Fast Forward Jewish feud over Trump escalates with open letter in The New York Times
-
Fast Forward First American pope, Leo XIV, studied under a leader in Jewish-Catholic relations
-
Shop the Forward Store
100% of profits support our journalism
Republish This Story
Please read before republishing
We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines.
You must comply with the following:
- Credit the Forward
- Retain our pixel
- Preserve our canonical link in Google search
- Add a noindex tag in Google search
See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.
To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.