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Friends of all faiths say Gibson is a good man, loving father and devoted husband with a blind spot: an addiction to alcohol that, by his own admission, has brought him to the brink of suicide. Asked by Diane Sawyer in 2004 if he seriously contemplated ending his life, Gibson said, "I really did. . . . You have to be insane to despair in that way." Anchored by faith and family (he has seven children with Robyn, 50, his wife of 26 years), Gibson appeared to have reined in his drinking in recent years. At a 2001 Oscar party, says L.A. acting coach Ivana Chubbuck, Gibson seemed "intent on being sober and was helping others stay sober."
But in recent weeks a different Gibson emerged. After a grueling nine-month shoot in Veracruz, Mexico, for Apocalypto, Gibson told friends he had finally kicked cigarettes. "He was cleansing his body," says a friend. However, Gibson was also drinking again, visiting Moonshadows more than once. And the more he drank, says the friend, the more self-destructive he became: "Something snapped – I would say he had a death wish." But at least some in Malibu say the star had never really dried out in the first place. "This doesn't surprise around here," says a longtime resident. "This is Mel. If you are looking for a story about this being an example of him suddenly spinning out of control, you aren't going to find it. Maybe this will finally knock him off his pedestal and force him to look at himself."
Gibson will have time to reflect during treatment. But outside, even friends are wondering, was his outburst the drink talking, or the real Mel? "I know Mel," says Tom Sherak, a film exec who worked on the distribution of Gibson's Braveheart. "I've not heard him say [anything anti-Semitic]. Those things in his head – which we all find very offensive, especially those of us who are Jewish – I don't see portrayed when I'm around him."
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