(JTA) — Actor Gary Oldman defended Mel Gibson for a 2006 drunken anti-Semitic rant and said those who criticized him were hypocrites.
In an interview with Playboy magazine, Oldman said of Gibson, “He got drunk and said a few things, but we’ve all said those things. … The policeman who arrested him never used the word n***** or that f***ing Jew?”
Gibson had said during the rant that “the Jews are responsible for all the wars in the world.”
Oldman added, “So they persecute. Mel Gibson is in a town that’s run by Jews and he said the wrong thing because he’s actually bitten the hand that I guess has fed him — and doesn’t need to feed him anymore because he’s got enough dough. He’s like an outcast, a leper, you know? But some Jewish guy in his office somewhere hasn’t turned and said, ‘That f***ing kraut’ or ‘F*** those Germans,’ whatever it is? We all hide and try to be so politically correct.”
Oldman previously had defended Alec Baldwin’s use of an anti-gay slur.
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