Did Mel Gibson really say John Lennon “deserved to be shot”?
Mel Gibson is one of the most controversial actors in Hollywood history, with his alleged tirades occurring periodically. While many spring to mind, the claims Winona Ryder made about his supposed anti-Semitic and homophobic comments towards her and a friend at a party and the anti-Semitic questioning of an arresting police officer in 2006 are two of the most infamous.
Gibson is a hard man to like, despite the quality of his movies and the fact that he denies every allegation against him. One of the most fascinating yet incomprehensible claims made about Gibson’s outlandish opinions came back in 2012 when a former collaborator alleged that he made dark comments about the death of Beatles frontman John Lennon, who is often hailed as the greatest songwriter of all time.
The claim came as part of an account by a former colleague of Gibson’s, who said that amongst a number of controversial statements, he once said the ‘Imagine’ songwriter “deserved to be shot”.
The death of John Lennon is one of the most tragic and notorious in the history of music. He was gunned down outside of his New York apartment in December 1980 by the religious fanatic Mark David Chapman, who earlier that day had his copy of the Lennon and Yoko Ono album Double Fantasy signed by the former Beatles frontman.
Whilst the death of Lennon was tragic in many ways, Chapman’s reasons for the murder are particularly sinister. He was incensed by Lennon’s luxurious lifestyle and the controversial comment he made in an interview in 1966 when he claimed that the ‘Fab Four’ were “more popular than Jesus”. After he was arrested, Chapman revealed that he was directly inspired by the fictional character Holden Caulfield from The Catcher in the Rye, as he despises hypocrisy.
The Braveheart and Apocalypto mastermind was accused of making the statement and others, by Joe Eszterhas, a screenwriter who worked with Gibson on the script for his doomed movie The Maccabees. In a letter written by Eszterhas that The Wrap obtained, the Basic Instinct screenwriter made many bold claims about Gibson’s behaviour, including ones involving anti-Semitism and the one about Lennon’s death.
“I’ve come to the conclusion that the reason you won’t make The Maccabees is the ugliest possible one,” Eszterhas reputedly documented. “You hate Jews.” He also claimed that Gibson said of The Beatles’ iconic frontman: “I’m glad he’s dead. He deserved to be shot. He was fucking Messianic! Listen to his songs. ‘Imagine’. I hate that fucking song. I’m glad he’s dead.”
Per a report in TMZ, in response Gibson dismissed Eszterhas’ allegations, with one source maintaining: “It’s not uncommon to hear The Beatles at Gibson’s house.”
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