Robert Downey Jr., as you no doubt know if you follow Hollywood lore, was once a polysubstance addict — or, as 12-step groups would phrase it, is an addict who has been in recovery since 2003.
He finally got sober after a life of doing drugs, starting before he turned 10, as Vanity Fair chronicled in 2014. He did some very ugly things under the influence, things that got him arrested and put behind bars, including a 15-month stretch in a California state prison, according to CNN .
Now 58, part of the reason he’s sober is another addict and actor, Mel Gibson, known both as an accomplished actor and director with too many credits to list, who has had on-and-off periods of sobriety.
Gibson, too, has done some ugly things under the influence, and those things have led him to become a pariah in Hollywood, mostly because of anti-Semitic statements he’s made while under the influence — and very specifically after a DUI arrest in 2006. Gibson has profusely apologized for these statements, but added in his 2006 apology that “there will be many in that community who will want nothing to do with me, and that would be understandable.”
And, again, there are many who aren’t in that community who will want nothing to do with Mel Gibson as a human being. This is a natural reaction in any parasocial relationship we have with a celebrity who has messed up in a serious, criminal and/or otherwise vile manner.
That being said, other people might not share your relationship with that person or your attitude for reasons that, very specifically, have nothing to do with excusing that behavior. That’s all right, too. I’d like to think we’re all on the same page here.
But then, I’d also like it if China were to recognize Taiwan as an independent democratic country, if Celine Dion would stop making music and delete her entire back catalogue, and if Geico finally came to the realization that high-concept, viral 30-second skits masquerading as commercials are not going to sell me on something as important as insurance. Those are all nice thoughts, and they won’t happen.
So, of course, the Very Online left is losing its mind that Downey Jr., a man who owes both his career and arguably his life to Mel Gibson, thanked him after winning Best Male Actor in a Supporting Role for his turn in Christopher Nolan’s “Oppenheimer” as Lewis Strauss, the head of the United States Atomic Energy Commission, in his speech at the SAG Awards this weekend.
Downey rattled off a list of names he wanted to thank, including Whoopi Goldberg, Woody Harrelson, Jodie Foster, Annette Bening, Val Kilmer … and, of course, Gibson.
As the liberal news outlets The Daily Beast and HuffPost (naturally) pointed out, this generated a storm on social media.
“Robert Downey Jr. Thanked Mel Gibson in SAG Speech. There Was Instant Backlash,” The Daily Beast headlined it.
“Robert Downey Jr. Thanked Mel Gibson At The SAG Awards… And People Have Questions,” noted HuffPost.
We’re really gonna thank/acknowledge Mel Gibson in an acceptance speech in the year 2024? Yikes
— Bonnie Stiernberg (@aahrealbonsters) February 25, 2024
Mel Gibson? Mel… Gibson? Well, that’s a choice. pic.twitter.com/3izJ2jgSco
— Sharareh Drury (@shararehdrury) February 25, 2024
mel gibson mentioned in your award speech in the year 2024 pic.twitter.com/r5Bkm2grAV
— penny lane (@TWPlTW) February 25, 2024
Why was Mel Gibson mentioned pic.twitter.com/ZmFXrIAqkt
— Amanda Rae🖤✨ (@manndaraee) February 25, 2024
Why was Mel Gibson mentioned? Funny you should ask — because Downey Jr. has talked about this in the past.
According to a 2011 report in the Hollywood trade outlet Deadline, Downey, his star then much on the rise after successful turns as Tony Stark/Iron Man in the Marvel Cinematic Universe and titular character in “Sherlock Holmes,” asked Hollywood to “forgive” Gibson due to the aid Gibson had provided Downey when he was at his lowest — and reminded Hollywood types that “unless you are without sin — and if you are, you are in the wrong [expletive] industry — you should forgive him and let him work.”
“He taught me many things and I will use the ‘C’ word, courage. There’s nothing so much wrong with him. Of course, you have to worry about the guy making the judgment here. He’s a good dude with a good heart,” Downey said during an American Cinematheque tribute to his work.
“Mel and I have the same lawyer, same publicist and same shrink. I couldn’t get hired and he cast me. He said if I accepted responsibility – he called it ‘hugging the cactus’ – long enough, my life would take meaning. And if he helped me, I would help the next guy. But it was not reasonable to assume the next guy would be him.”
Furthermore, as the U.K. Guardian noted in 2008, Gibson was the one who got Downey back into Hollywood when no one would have him; he invited Downey Jr. to star in 2003’s “The Singing Detective,” which Gibson was producing. When companies would refuse to insure Downey Jr. due to his past issues with drug addiction, which had led to the derailment of or his removal from several projects, Gibson vouched for Downey himself.
Do you like Mel Gibson?
From there, Downey Jr. would progress through smaller roles like “Good Night, and Good Luck,” “Kiss Kiss Bang Bang” and “Zodiac.” Then came “Iron Man” and, well, you can go from there. It’s what, in Downey’s sardonic words quoted by the Guardian, stopped him from becoming “this ne’er-do-well embittered, unemployable guy arguing with some hooker outside a Malibu hotel scrambling for a syringe.”
One does not need to recapitulate the careers, the addictions and a full survey of the lows of these two men. The fact is that, without Gibson’s intervention, Downey Jr. wouldn’t have been giving a speech at the 2024 SAG awards. The fact is, too, that if Gibson weren’t a Christian who tends toward conservative politics, this likely wouldn’t remain the issue that it is.
It’s worth noting that actor Marlon Brando, apparently sober and speaking on CNN back in 1996, embarked on a far more poisonous anti-Semitic tirade than Gibson’s.
This has more or less been a forgotten chapter in Brando’s legacy because, along with an apology, he happened to have liberal bona fides. It’s also worth noting that Downey thanked Whoopi Goldberg. You may recall she had some much more recent, ahem, issues with the Jewish community over statements delivered while totally sober. Again, liberal bona fides save the day.
Gibson does not have such credentials, obviously. Hence, nearly two decades on from an incident that pretty clearly sprung from addiction amid other reports of remarks also linked to his alcoholism, liberals still beat the drums of vengeance.
