EXCLUSIVE! MEL GIBSON'S ORIGINAL STATEMENT TO THE PRESS:

Statement from Mel Gibson

There is no excuse, nor should there be any tolerance, for anyone who thinks or expresses any kind of anti-Semitic remark. Unless they're said by your saintly father who's always been right about everything else, so you can forgive a little Holocaust denial, and don't ask me to bad mouth him... ever! He's my father dammit!

Anyway, I want to apologize specifically to everyone in the Jewish community for the vitriolic and harmful words that I said to a law enforcement officer the night I was arrested on a DUI charge. Notice I didn't say I was drunk. I just said that I was "arrested on a DUI charge." So that means my lawyers, (some of whom look pretty Jewish to me), and I aren't admitting that I did anything illegal, got that?

Now for the things I said. Sure, they're no different than the kind of stuff you hear on the BBC every night, and it's not like I bombed any civilians in Lebanon or anything. But I can see that people are upset.

I am a public person, and when I say something, either articulated and thought out, or blurted out in a moment of insanity, my words carry weight in the public arena. In other words, I am God. I made a nutty little movie in Aramaic for God sake and it still broke every box office record ever! As a result, I must assume personal responsibility for my words and apologize directly to those who have been hurt and offended by those words, over-sensitive pussies that they are.

The tenets of what I profess to believe necessitate that I exercise charity and tolerance as a way of life. Every human being is God's child, and if I wish to honor my God I have to honor his children. But please know from my heart that I am not an anti-Semite. I am not a bigot. Hatred of any kind goes against my faith. In other words, I'm not anti-Jewish, I'm just pro-Scotch.

I'm not just asking for forgiveness. I would like to take it one step further, and meet with leaders in the Jewish community, with whom I can have a one on one discussion to discern the appropriate path for healing. But I sure hope that the leaders of the Jewish community are made of better stuff than the Jewish studio execs I usually deal with. Those people could make a Nazi out of Mother Teresa.

I have begun an ongoing program of recovery and what I am now realizing is that I cannot do it alone. I am in the process of understanding where those vicious words came from during that drunken display, and I am asking the Jewish community, whom I have personally offended, to help me on my journey through recovery. In other words, put up or shut up. You want to fix this situation? Then fix it! That means kneeling beside me as I blow chunks into a Betty Ford urinal, taking away my cell phone so I don't drink and crank call the B'nai Brith people anymore, and explaining to my wife why we BOTH have genital warts. Again, I am reaching out to the Jewish community for its help. I know there will be many in that community who will want nothing to do with me, and that would be understandable. I'll see them in Hell. But I pray that that door is not forever closed, especially since you Jews own most of the banks and I like to visit my money.

This is not about a film. Nor is it about artistic license. And thank goodness for that, because 90% of my films have really sucked and I'm no artist. This is about real life and recognizing the consequences hurtful words can have. I realize that some people are very, very weak and unable to take it. I'm working to be at peace with the world's wussiness, but I'll make do. This is about existing in harmony in a world that seems to have gone mad... because of the Jews.

Thank you for your time.