Many people were surprised by the Mel Gibson tapes – profanity-laced, racially and sexually derogatory tirades recorded by his ex-girlfriend – earlier this year.
Winona Ryder is not one of those people.
The 39-year-old actress reveals to GQ that Mel made similarly offensive (if not quite as heated) remarks about gays and Jews to her many years ago.
Recent revelations about Mel are very familiar to Winona.
“Fifteen years ago, I was at one of those big Hollywood parties. And he was really drunk,” Ryder tells the magazine. “I was with my friend, who’s gay.”
“[Gibson] made a really horrible gay joke.”
The Black Swan star says that wasn’t even all: “Somehow it came up that I was Jewish … He said something about ‘oven dodgers,’ but I didn’t get it at first. I’d never heard that before. It was just this weird, weird moment.”
She says that when the story of the tapes first leaked, it didn’t shock her: “I was like, ‘He’s anti-Semitic and he’s homophobic.’ No one believed me!”
Gibson has been accused of homophobia before this, too – he made derogatory comments in an early-’90s interview with Spanish newspaper El País.
He made anti-Semitic remarks after his epic DUI arrest in 2006 blaming Jews for all the world’s problems. He also called a female cop “sugar t!ts.”
Criminal or not … guy needs SERIOUS help.