Oksana: I Started Recording Mel's Rants Because I Feared For My Life!

Oksana Grigorieva comes ‘clean’ about why she started taping baby daddy Mel Gibson’s crazy outbursts and says she needed to protect herself and her child. Do you believe her?

Is Oksana Grigorieva finally coming clean, or is this just the latest jab in a huge game of he said, she said? The Russian pianist says she has the REAL story of why she decided to slyly record baby daddy Mel Gibson‘s crazy rants.

“It was supposed to be a celebration,” a source close to Oksana tells People of their Feb. 18 tree-planting ceremony. “Mel became convinced she was flirting with the gardener, which was completely absurd, but he became enraged about it to the degree that he felt he was a danger to Oksana and the baby.”

Oksana realized that mother knows best, and called her own mom in Russia for advice. “It was her mother who told her she should start recording the calls just in case something happened to her and Lucia,” says the source, who adds that Mel, 54, crazily called Oksana a series of times throughout the day. “That’s how the recordings started.”

The recordings started nearly a month after the epic Jan. 6 fight that left Oksana with a black eye and broken teeth. The couple is currently bitterly fighting for custody of their eight-month-old daughter, Lucia. Oksana claims Mel abused her in front of the baby, and he claims she tried to extort him for money and sole custodial rights.

Laura Schreffler