Why Jodie Foster is sticking up for Mel

Jodie Foster isn’t giving up on Mel Gibson, said Sheila Weller in More. Foster, 47, has been close to her fellow actor for 16 years, since they worked together on a film. “The second I met him,” says Foster, “I said, ‘I will love this man for the rest of my life.’ He’s the easiest, nicest person I’ve ever worked with.” But in recent years, Gibson has alienated nearly everyone in Hollywood with a series of scandals, including an anti-Semitic outburst following a 2006 drunken-driving arrest, and the audiotaped stream of profanity, racism, and threats he made while breaking up with Russian singer Oksana Grigorieva.

Through it all, Foster has consoled and counseled him. “Mel has been a true and loyal friend,” Foster says. “When you love a friend, you don’t abandon them when they are struggling.” Before the Grigorieva disaster, Foster cast Gibson in a film she directed—which, ironically, is about “how close we all come to mental illness and what you have to give up in order to save yourself.” That movie may never be released, because Gibson is now seen as box-office poison. But Foster’s loyalty to him remains intact. “I hope I can get him through this dark moment.”

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