Madeleine Stowe Says Mel Gibson Isn’t An Anti-Semite, Is A ‘Wonderful Person’

Madeleine Stowe, who is currently starring on Revenge, wants everyone to know that despite Mel Gibson’s drunken rants about Jewish people, the actor, to her knowledge, has nothing against Jewish people.

Madeleine Stowe became friends with Gibson and the two worked on a film together back in 2002, We Were Soldiers. That was a few years before Gibson became a Hollywood pariah due to a few outbursts that were both racist and anti-Semitic, most notably an outburst during a DUI arrest in 2006 in Malibu.

During the arrest, Gibson made several remarks that were later reported, among them a strange non-sequitur:

“F***ing Jews … The Jews are responsible for all the wars in the world … Are you a Jew?”

Despite the fact that Mel Gibson decided to lash out at Jews for no obvious reason during a traffic stop, Madeleine Stowe tells Katie Couric on Katie that Gibson is troubled by his public perception since he made the remarks in 2006 (as well as telling now-ex Oksana Grigorieva that he hoped she would be raped by a “pack of [n-words]” and using the word “wetback” in recorded phone calls.)

Stowe said to Couric:

“He has been a very good friend to me … He’s very tortured by what’s going on. I do not believe that he’s an anti-Semite in my heart of hearts. I think that he’s a very complex, deep individual.”

While the words actually said by Mel Gibson seem to contradict Stowe’s perception, she believes that people are wrong about Gibson, and added:

“I can only tell you the Mel that I know … And he was probably one of the most wonderful people on the set, ever. … He’s a special man.”

Whether or not Gibson was a “wonderful” person to any Jews or black people or Mexicans with whom he had to work was not discussed by Madeleine Stowe during the Couric interview.