Now the word “extortion” is coming into play in the furor surrounding tapes surrounding Mel Gibson. CBS News reports:
Celebrity website TMZ says sources linked to Mel Gibson tell it they have “hard evidence” that the actor’s ex-girlfriend, Oksana Grigorieva, tried to extort Gibson by demanding more than $10 million to keep tapes she had of him secret.
Gossip website RadarOnline has been posting several tapes of a man who sounds very much like Gibson, 54, in obscenity-laced tirades directed at a woman RadarOnline identifies as Grigorieva, a Russian singer.
They’re in a bitter child custody battle, which moved inside a Los Angeles courtroom Thursday, though neither of them attended the session.
Their eight-month-old daughter, Lucia, is the subject of the dispute, but tapes apparently recorded by Grigorieva, 40, have been in the media spotlight.
The fifth such tape, another expletive-filled rant by the man alleged to be Gibson, has him claiming he’s spent $5 million on Grigorieva and calling her a gold-digger.
But, as CBS News Correspondent Ben Tracy reports, the Oscar-winner’s lawyers assert the tapes have been edited, and at least one forensics expert agrees.
During the closed court session, Tracy says, attorneys for Grigorieva contended phone calls like the ones in the recordings are the reason Gibson can’t be trusted.
The most likely impact?
If it’s shown that the tapes were truly and substantially doctored, that may mitigate some of the Gulf Oil Spill-type public relations disaster that Gibson is facing.
If it turns out there was a minor bit of editing and part of an extortion attempt, that won’t turn public sympathies towards him. Unless he can prove it’s not his voice, he has most likely lost a chunk of his audience no matter what. For instance, if he wasn’t a movie star and director it’s hard to imagine any company that would hire him to endorse their product — unless there’s one that manufactures mouth soap.
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.