Mel Gibson's Unlikely Ally: A HollywoodLife.com Reader & A Victim Of Domestic Violence Who Claims Oksana Is ‘The Woman Who Cried Wolf!’

Fri, July 30, 2010 9:33pm EDT by Hollywood Life Staff 23 Comments

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One HollywoodLifer tells me she’s Team Mel! As a victim of domestic abuse herself, she doesn’t think Oksana is telling the truth!

No woman (or man) should ever be harmed by his or her significant other — but one HollywoodLife.com reader has become so fed up with Oksana Grigorieva’s claims that Mel Gibson abused her that she feels the need to speak out on behalf of all victims of domestic violence.

Karen from Ariz. told me she was outraged when she first heard 54-year-old Mel’s taped rants…but now the tables have turned and she’s suspicious of Oksana’s motives.

“I had a son with my second husband, who was an alcoholic, and it was a nightmare. The first time he ever got violent, I left him immediately,” Karen told me July 30. “I didn’t take anything. I wouldn’t have taken an extra second at the risk of putting my son in danger.”

This is what first made Karen realize there were holes in Oksana’s story. “Oksana didn’t say ANYTHING to the cops for six months. If she was really concerned about her children’s safety, why didn’t she report him immediately? She let him all of this solo visits with Lucia until her plan backfired,” Karen said, ranting, “When her treachery is
FINALLY exposed for what it is — she will have brought into question every abused woman. Any woman who’s really been battered (especially before abuse was recognized) must be livid.”

Karen’s opinions about the issue seem backwards. Shouldn’t the abused side with the abused? Isn’t Mel still to blame for saying horrible, nasty abusive things, no matter what Oksana did to provoke him — or is Oksana making a bad case for abused women every where?

What do YOU think, HollywoodLifers?

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Assuming those tapes are legit and he really did say those things to her, that’s particularly aggressive verbal, psychological and emotional abuse. Not all abuse has to be physical for it to be harmful, and I don’t think anyone deserves to be on the receiving end of the kinds of things Mel Gibson is alleged to have said to her.

Regardless of what Oksana may or may not have said or done that made him that mad and hateful, there was no call for him to say the things he said or the way he said them.

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This woman wasn’t abused, it’s about money. Abuse has patterns, his first wife stands behind him. Get a grip people.

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A supposed victim says another victim’s story can’t be true because she made different decisions? BS! MOST victims of domestic violence do not leave the first time it happens. Good for those who do, but it isn’t common. I am a survivor of domestic violence and I put up with it for nearly two years. Through therapy and reading, I found out that I was normal. In fact, one statistic claims that the average victim will try to leave seven times before leaving for good.

Karen does NOT speak for all domestic violence victims, nor is she familiar with the facts. Domestic violence is called a cycle of violence because it goes on and on, sucking the victim back in every time the abuser apologizes. Of all the other survivors I’ve met in support groups, not one of them left the first time. Most of them stayed for years due to broken self esteem, lack of funds to leave or fear of being alone. Karen makes it sounds like it is just as simple as leaving, but it isn’t. She has no clue about the psychology behind domestic violence!

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Oksana knew exactly which buttons to push to set Mel Gibson off and she used that to her advantage. Plus the fact he was trying to quit smoking didn’t help. If she was truly in fear for herself, her daughter or her son then she should have left. No baiting him as she did. She had to have been quite sure that Mel wouldn’t hurt her when she baited him. If I had a raving man in my face screaming at me I certainly wouldn’t have been antagonizing him as she did in the recordings. And as a mother, at the first sign of that type of rage, I would have taken my children and left. Make an excuse they needed to go get an ice cream or go to the store or something. She has made it quite clear she is after $$$.

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I’m sorry, what exactly are these buttons that Oksana supposedly pushed? I’m not clear why you would think she was “baiting” him.

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This Karen Lady is an idiot and I hope there are educated woman out there that can stop this lady from setting back the rights of women by 50 years.

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go go Rasputin! Perhaps somebody needs to be less abusive?

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ok Karen from Ariz. not everyone is you, we all deal with our problems in different ways. Dosn’t mean that something is not going on. So good for you that you got out it’s not the same for everyone. So please get over yourself. No one knows what is really going on behind close doors. Do you!!!!

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Still doesn’t answer why she stayed with him for however long before reporting it. Obviously she spent an awful lot of time and “timing” taping him when she could have spent that time away from him. BTW if you listen to the tapes there one sided and fixed….

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oh I agree with her…if a child is involved in any form of abuse the mother would have left before 6 months. shes a liar and i dont believe her.if itwould have been her alone then i might have thought yes …but no no good mother would keep her child in a place where the baby would be harmed.

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Anyone who thinks that when a child is harmed in any way that there is some sort of time limit as to when the parent(not always the mother)leaves the relationship are very, very wrong. Children are abused every day and there cries for help many times go unanswered. Sexual abuse, physical abuse, and mental abuse run rampant in every type of household rich and poor. Some children even tell there parent and are hushed and sent back to there room only to be touched in an improper way or physically abused over and over again. Please don’t pass judgement so quickly it is like smacking the victim in the face yet again. I have worked in the film industry for over 20yrs and let me tell you..many of those actors you love and can’t get enough of are sometimes the worse individuals off camera. I could sell my stories but I am one to believe; “What you put out is what you get back.” If any of you really want to understand the magnitude and depth of Domestic abuse do your homework and don’t just assume. I know Oksana looks like a major gold digger and honestly I can’t disagree with that. But, that in no way means she is an awful mother who is willing to put everything on the table about one of the most powerful men in the Entertainment Industry without substantial evidence to back up her claims. She was stupid to offer this to the tabloids. What I am getting out of it all is a sense that this woman is desperate for help. This is not only about Oksana but the many woman faced with the same issues. “Oh, Mel seems so lovely he wouldn’t do that.” All you know of Mel is the actor the star…you don’t know Mel the guy off camera. Two very different people. That is what you call amazing acting.

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I am a survivor of physical and mental abuse that spanned over 3 years and let me tell you..we sit in silence. Denial, denial, denial. We can’t believe it is happening to us and we continue to stay in hopes that it was just a mistake a one time deal. After the third or forth time we are so numb to it all that we just deal with it and feel we deserve it. I was (and never again will be) a victim of domestic abuse who witnessed it as a child with my mother and repeated her toxic history.
I think Karen is being completely irresponsible with her “no fact” ideas of what really went down. None of us know all the facts only Mel and Oksana. But, I will tell you this much..I know she is not lying about the abuse. What I do not condone or agree with is how Oksana is approaching this all. The first claim you felt horrified and sad for her and her children. Even the second claim I was saddened. But by the third and forth claim I was done. We survivors need to stick together and empower one another to not hide in the darkness but to seek help. She is now looking like a money hungry desperate woman and now everyone who was for her are now questioning her motives. Oksana I say stop selling your stories to the tabloids and do this in a dignified fashion away from the media. Then, sit with Oprah and give your side of the story. Enough is truly enough..

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Well said! Abuse may or may not have happened but her story looks suspicious when for one..there are hardly any responses at all on the tapes..it’s only his voice.
The other thing that bothered me is this woman is supposedly a big celebrity in her own country but when all these allegations of Mel abusing her came out we didn’t hear word one from other people around her..some how she’s reporting this and doing this all completely alone? I highly doubt that. This woman seems to be a gold digger. The shots of injuries I saw did not look very real. I can photoshop quite well myself and most people wouldn’t know what i did to a photo to make it “better” or enhanced. Copy and paste and voila…a brand new photo really. It’s not hard to do. Most news agencies don’t check out stories like this like they should because they are afraid of victims’ rights folks and even alienating true victims. Oksana needs to get help..for herself and children. Mel Gibson had a midlife crisis and now he is paying for it big time. Hopefully he will make better decisions in the future. I was abused and an abused person does not want to be as public as she is being with this (usually) And one is right to ask “Why” she is doing it this way when she could have done it legally and quietly and still made a lot of money off of him. She seems to want to ruin him..and I would bet it had something to with the fact that he may have told her “I’m sorry but I should have never left my family..and now I have to live with that but I don’t want to live with you either”. When I see reports like this one I also have to wonder if one of the buttons she pushes regularly is “the baby isn’t yours, Mel”. I’ve seen women do this to men just to try to get them to hit them. It’s a pretty common trick. I hate it when women do things like this. Real abuse victims rarely want anything made public.

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Search Green Card Hunters to learn the steps such Ukrainian Russian women do to westerners. Falsifying abuse accusation is an essential steps of the scam. If a lot of money is involved, well, the ski is the limit on what they can falsify. They know the western laws and loops b efore they leave their countries. They always do it. It is a standard procedure. It is a national pride and honor to decieve westerners. Anyone like them would help them as well. Mel is lucky did not marry her. He is still alive.

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Ok and whoever said that its a fact that most abuse victims dont report things right away, thats not entirely true. Woman who are in abusive relationships tend to not report things right away. Now a women who has a child and the child suddenly becomes a victim in the abuse, they are definitely most likely to report right away. I have worked with abuse victims and sorry but more then not a mother maternal instinct kicks into overdrive when she sees her child abused. Most mothers will take abuse themselves for a long time without reporting as to take the brunt of the abuse. Once the child is abused, thats usually when the mother comes forward. I have seen that so many times it shocked me. Women will take the hits for months and years and stay silent but the second the man raises his hand to their child, they fight back. This woman is just saying what a lot of people are thinking and it is a truly valid point. I am not on Gibson’s side either but this woman is not as big of a victim as she is putting out.

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I have heard enough from Mel Gibson’s mouth to know there was abuse. You don’t think anyone would be scared to death in house with someone ragging and calling you names. Calling back to back thirty times in 24 hrs just to degrade you. Does this sound like a stable person. I dont care if Oksana is a direct spawn of Satan who was born for the one person to ruin Mel Gibson. You are sending a message its ok because she is a good digger. He doesn’t like W** B****,N******,F***,J*** ok he screams and cusses and hits them. I hope I am never so star struck that I let his behavoir slide cause he is Mr. Mel Gibson. I wonder how you would feel if he were treating your daughter or mother this way. would it be there fault You sound just like Mel I am sure she deserved it. Why put Charlie Sheen in jail for much less and do nothing to Mel.I am sure the police he called names and acted up with it was there fault too. You need to seee the pattern.Calling a 12 yr old child a p**** did he deserve thet to? He is a very dangerous man even if he only is abusive to the ones who”deserve ” it

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I agree with the woman. Just cause a woman claims abuse doesnt make it real. Woman desperate for money or attention are capable of doing drastic things. Anyone who says a woman would never fake abuse is a flat out liar. I am a woman and I have witnessed this more then a few times from very manipulative woman. Even using their children as pawns. Dont give me that she was scared to report him at first and thats why she waited. Uh uh, not buying it. If you were truly interested in your childs safety, which most of the time dwarfs the mothers own concern for herself, you would have turned him in right away. Not let him have solo visits with the baby and not “sign a deal and then back out”. It’s shady she even CONSIDERED the deal at all if she was so scared for her daughter. I am not saying Mel doesnt have issues but the more this woman opens her mouth, the more I am wondering is the tapes are even real. The black eye photos dont even look like her and no offense, I have been hit in the mouth before by a fist. Chipped my front tooth and I had a busted lip big time. Your lip would split on contact of the fist and hitting the tooth. I am in support of woman who are victims of domestic violence but I dont believe this woman is one.

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this is really horrific. you ought to be ashamed of yourself for printing this. i know what abuse sounds like. i don’t even care if he didn’t actually hit her. if i were in oksana’s shoes, and i got harassed like that by a very powerful man, i hope i would be smart enough to record it. and release it. remember, nicole simpson called the cops many times… but nobody knew about it. and now she’s dead.

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It isn’t helpful to anyone, much less abuse victims, when an self-described abuse victim comes out, flying in the face of audio and photographic evidence, and basically calls this other woman a liar. You can speak for yourself and ONLY for yourself as far as how an abuse situation is handled.
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More than likely, Mel’s lawyers convinced him to immediately try to cut a deal with Oksana to keep her quiet once they found out what had happened, in order to keep him out of jail. He still wields a lot of power in Hollywood so I imagine with his connections and financial assets, he was able to exert a lot of pressure on her to say nothing.
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But 30 calls in one night is more than creepy. Especially when you consider what Gibson sounded like on some of those calls and on the previous ones..then it is frightening. The photos seem to back up her accusations, and she has a doctor who diagnosed her with a concussion. She says she has texts and other messages from Mel directly implicating himself as having physically assaulted her.
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The backlash against Oksana is just astounding, and it certainly is bringing a lot of misogynists running out from the woodwork. We have all heard the tapes, we all know what Gibson sounded like. That kind of rage is so deep, I personally have never been subjected to it, and I can’t imagine having it directed at me. Gibson is bipolar, he isn’t on medication, and he is dangerous. PERIOD.

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Ditto, Zilla. And what’s really disturbing are the number of misogynistic women, who clearly have never read any of the statistics on domestic abuse, and yet feel compelled to comment.

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Karen’s crazy cakes. It doesn’t matter what Oksana’s motives are. We all know she’s no angel in this mess. But no matter what she intended or even instigated, Mel in the end is responsible for his actions and only his actions. You can’t MAKE anyone go completely off the deep end like he did. The man has some serious issues to work on in terms of anger, disprespect for women, general bigotry, a god complex, just to name a few. And oksana can’t be blamed for those nutso qualities.

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