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Mel Gibson appeared on The Tonight Show With Jay Leno last night and surprisingly, he willingly brought up his most recent secretly recorded meltdown.

He joked about it repeatedly, no less.

The now-infamous Mel Gibson rant, in which he RAGED at Joe Eszterhas (and was taped in his own home, unwittingly, by Eszterhas’ son), was over the top, he conceded. Still, Mel believes his privacy was violated and his actions were “justified.” Why?

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Eszterhas’ script for The Maccabees was non-existent, then awful, Mel said, proceeding to slam the screenwriter for selling him out hardcore in a nine-page letter released online – before he leaked the audiotape.

“If he put half as much time and effort and creativity and imagination into a screenplay, which he was supposed to write, as he did into that letter, we wouldn’t be having this conversation,” Gibson said of Joe Eszterhas.

As for the rant itself, Leno asked, “So what were you doing, just swearing at the guy?”

“Yeah, pretty much,” Mel deadpanned, before adding self-deprecatingly, “Maybe you don’t know this about me, but I’ve got a little bit of a temper.”