Skip to content
Link copied to clipboard

Can Mel Gibson find redemption?

Will the public be kind or mean to Mel Gibson now that he's back in the limelight with a new - and incredibly powerful - film about World War II?

Mel Gibson eyes the public

Will the public be kind or mean to Mel Gibson now that he's back in the limelight with a new - and incredibly powerful - film about World War II?

Gibson, who directs Andrew Garfield, Teresa Palmer, and Vince Vaughn in Hacksaw Ridge, outraged many a fan a decade ago with a series of public meltdowns in which he launched into rants peppered with anti-Semitic, sexist, and racist comments.

"A lot of time goes by," Gibson, 60, tells USA Today. "People are tired of petty grudges about nothing. About somebody having a nervous breakdown [after] double tequilas in the back of a police car."

Gibson, who says he has stopped drinking, admitted the events were "regrettable," adding, "I've made my apologies, I've done my bit. Moved along. Ten years later. Big deal."

He isn't entirely dismissive about people's lingering concerns.

"I've worked on myself a lot," he says. "I'm a different person than I was back then. But the thing that remains the same is I think I could always tell a story."

Zayn Malik gets real

Zayn Malik seems to suggest in a chat with the Associated Press that he battled an eating disorder during his final months as a member of mega-popular teen act One Direction.

"When I look back at images of myself from around November 2014, before the final tour, I can see how ill I was," Malik says.

"Something I've never talked about in public before, but which I have come to terms with since leaving the band, is that I was suffering from an eating disorder."

The British "Like I Would" warbler said he wasn't fixated on keeping his weight down. His problems with food kind of sneaked up on him. "I'd just go for days - sometimes two or three days straight - without eating anything at all," he said. "It got quite serious, although at the time I didn't recognize it for what it was."

However, later in the same interview, Malik added that he wasn't officially ill.

"I don't think I ever had an eating disorder," he said. "I was never diagnosed with one of them." I'm confused.

Hulu adds Fox, ABC-Disney

Subscription web video service Hulu has added more networks to its new live-streaming service set to launch next year. That includes live and on-demand content from the ABC and Fox networks, and ESPN's several channels. They join Time Warner networks including CNN, TBS, and TNT, as well as Comcast (NBCUniversal) and 21st Century Fox.

As I lay gossiping . . .

Seems Taylor Swift hasn't totally let go of her country roots. Country band Little Big Town on Tuesday said Swift wrote their new single "Better Man." . . . We knew this was coming: Celebs who vow they will leave America if Donald Trump wins the election. Breaking Bad star Bryan Cranston committed to the move on Monday. "I would be an expatriate," he said on The Bestseller Experiment podcast, the Washington Times reports. "Absolutely, I would definitely move." . . . Beyoncé and Jay Z went out on Halloween as Barbie and Ken, the Hollywood Reporter says.

tirdad@phillynews.com

215-854-2736