Mel Gibson’s claims in an interview about the “evils of Hollywood” have resurfaced online after the launch of the movie Sound of Freedom.
Gibson is known to be a supporter of the movie, filming a promotional push on social media encouraging people to see it. In the wake of the film’s release, a 1998 interview featuring the actor discussing his shock at what Hollywood is like has gone viral.
The new movie has had a tumultuous release, with moviegoers sharing their alleged experiences online of people being forced from their seats for various reasons and theaters having the air-conditioning turned off. The film is based on Tim Ballard’s life as he set out to fight child sex-trafficking across the world.
In the interview, he does not explicitly mention anything that directly links to the themes of Sound of Freedom, but movie producer and Slightly Offensive podcast host Elijah Schaffer connected the alleged dots between the two with a tweet he shared on Sunday.
Mel Gibson attends Columbia Pictures’ “Father Stu” photo call on April 1, 2022, in West Hollywood, California. An interview of Gibson speaking about Hollywood in 1998 has resurfaced, and has been linked to the release… More RODIN ECKENROTH/WIREIMAGE
“SHOCKING,” he begins before explaining what the attached video is. “Mel Gibson (Sound of Freedom) is the REAL DEAL. Warned about the evils of HOLLYWOOD in 1998. Predicted how they’d turn on him. Alludes to actors being actual demons. He knows something very dark & wants to EXPOSE it. The seriousness in his voice is chilling,” Schaffer wrote.
Schaffer puts Sound of Freedom in brackets after Gibson’s name in the tweets, which suggests he was involved in the film in some way. However, the actor has only been seen promoting the movie on social media, but otherwise, is not believed to be involved.
The video included is an edited version of a 1998 episode of Hollywood Conversations, featuring British movie director Mike Figgis “in Conversation with Mel Gibson.”
While the original program was 24 minutes long, it was cut down to just three minutes and 10 seconds for Twitter. So far, the tweet has been viewed 2.7 million times.
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Gibson begins by explaining how he had “weird, paranoid suspicions about Hollywood when he arrived. “You go away and you think, ‘no, I was wrong. That’s insane thinking. I’m paranoid. I imagined that stuff. That couldn’t be the reason for why so and so was acting like, could it?’
“And then you find out later down the track that you were exactly on track with a lot of this stuff,” he said. “That some of your worst nightmares were real at the time, and you think,” Gibson then makes a shocked face.
He also speaks at length about expecting to be betrayed in Hollywood, using a graphic metaphor about a knife going in his back.
Gibson then tells a story about a celebrity coming to meet him with a “cold” presence who walked through a crowd of people towards him, making Gibson nervous. It is unclear who he is talking about at first, until Gibson finishes his story with, “and I thought, ‘Oh no. Chris Walken is the anti-Christ,’ you know?”
The Twitter video finishes with a clip of Gibson discussing needing a “cockroach resilience to survive in this town.”
Website Snopes included a full transcript of the entire Hollywood Conversation episode, which includes key context for some of Gibson’s quotes that are used in the tweet that went viral.
Gibson has endured a tempestuous time in Hollywood. Reaching highs with two Academy Award wins, but also hitting lows, such as his arrest and drunken antisemitic rant in July 2006.
He has also faced false claims, as a Newsweek fact check learned, when people erroneously credited him with saying Hollywood elites drink children’s blood.
It was also wrongly claimed by thousands online recently that Gibson was working with Ballard, the founder of the anti child-trafficking group Operation Underground Railroad, to create a four-part documentary series about a global ring. Gibson’s representatives told Newsweek that this was not true, despite the rumors.
Newsweek reached out to Gibson’s representatives for comment via email on Thursday.
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