HOLLYWOOD, Calif. — Mel Gibson believes there are much bigger concerns in the world than how many women Tiger Woods may have slept with.
“I feel sorry for Tiger Woods,” the 54-year-old actor tells Britain’s Daily Mail of the embattled golfer’s affair scandal. “Why are we talking about this when we’re sending 30,000 more troops to Afghanistan?”
“You’ve got this history-changing event going on and we’re talking about Tiger’s private life and golf injuries,” continued Gibson. “He’s being used as a diversion and it just drives me crazy. You come out savaged. I just think, ‘Who cares?’ “
Gibson, who has endured his own share of Hollywood scandals, said the best defense is always a good offense when it comes to dealing with a sensitive matter.
“Nobody is without sin,” he said. “You have to try to make amends if you can. You have to shut up and move on and not whine about it. And you have to deal with it like a man.”
“Whatever fallout comes from it, be it fair or unfair, you’ve just got to accept your own culpability. The minute you start whining, it’s ridiculous,” he added.
Gibson, who soon returns to the big screen in the thriller Edge of Darkness, revealed that he’s been sober for 3½ years now. His sobriety came about after he was famously pulled over for DUI in 2006 and allegedly made anti-Semitic comments during his arrest.
“Sometimes just sheer faith is all that carries you through. You have to have that to survive,” Gibson said of carrying on through the hard times. “Many people profess not to have faith, but I think we all do, of sorts. We all have a desperate desire to be happy. Look around you. This world and what it has to offer is not good enough. There’s got to be a place, somewhere, where happiness is achievable.”
“So faith that things will eventually be OK is what keeps us all going,” he continued. “And if that place doesn’t exist… I’ll go and check out now. Hand me the noose. I just think there’s a greater purpose. I am selfish and egotistical. When you can forget your own ego and help others, that’s when you find yourself.”
