MEL GIBSON: I would get addicted to anything, anything at all, okay.
DIANE SAWYER: Was it alcohol?
MEL GIBSON: Yeah, yeah, mostly, it was, yeah. Look, don't I look like a rummy? No? (Laughs)
DIANE SAWYER: Drugs?
MEL GIBSON: Drugs, booze, anything, you name it. Coffee, cigarettes, anything. I'm just one of these guys who is like that, that's my flaw.
DIANE SAWYER: But you talked about the fact that you went on benders, got into fights, was hell to live with. They said five pints before work.
MEL GIBSON: Five pints of oil, yeah.
DIANE SAWYER: Beer?
MEL GIBSON: No, it was just, you know, to keep the throat lubricated, you know. Sometimes I used to drive inebriated. This is the height of careless stupidity and when you think about that kind of insanity and that you … I look back at that now and I go, "What was I thinking?" I was a wild boy and we grew up in the '60s and '70s, you know, wild times.
DIANE SAWYER: Just all kinds of carrying on.
MEL GIBSON: What flaws shall I expose to the world here? Yeah, it's, you know, done a lot of things I'm not proud of. Like to hear another one?
DIANE SAWYER: You got my attention.
MEL GIBSON: Yeah, tell me another one. True confessions on national television. Okay, gosh, let me see, oh, here's a beauty. No, I don't want to do this, this is horrible, this is awful. I'm really a good guy. I mean, the real medal goes to my wife, who's a wonderful woman, you know.
DIANE SAWYER: What did she do?
MEL GIBSON: What did she do? She hoped. For years.
DIANE SAWYER: Robyn, his wife of 24 years and mother to his seven children.
MEL GIBSON: She's the best friend I have ever had. She's just great and would be there completely, 100 percent, 110 percent. And to put up with me, that's already a tall order so, hey, I'll spend the rest of my life giving her medals, more precious than jewels.
DIANE SAWYER: But Gibson says several times he had tried to turn his life around but kept failing and was brought to the brink of suicidal despair.
MEL GIBSON: I checked into a few places and, you know, sorted myself out. I didn't make a big noise about it.
DIANE SAWYER: You thought of jumping out a window?
MEL GIBSON: I really did, yeah. I was looking down thinking, man, this is just easier this way. I don't know … you have to be mad, you have to be insane to despair in that way. But that is the height of spiritual bankruptcy. There's nothing left. But it's … that wow, what a waste, and people do that is so sad. Whenever I hear of suicides, I just want to die, you know, I want to cry and it's … because there's something better if they can just hang on a little longer, you know. It's awful. So, anyway. Oop, is this the crying segment? Wait a minute.
http://tinyurl.com/eqzxj
Yeah, I remember that interview. I'm not surprised at the DUI arrest. But I am surprised at the allegations of slurs and didn't believe the story here. Now it appears he did say something wrong, enough for him to publicly apologize, anyway.