LOS ANGELES, Oct. 13 (UPI) -- U.S. actor-director Mel Gibson says he was "ashamed" by remarks he made about Jews during his July arrest for driving while intoxicated.
In a "Good Morning America" interview with ABC's Diane Sawyer Friday, Gibson denied that growing up with a father who has publicly said many Holocaust claims are fiction had anything to do with his anti-Semitic remarks to the policeman who arrested him July 28.
"It isn't the explanation for what happened that night. It isn't. It has nothing to do with it. It's -- that's in my own heart," he said.
"I heard back that a woman who had read the apology actually wept with relief," he said. "Now, that sort of hit me. I was like, 'Relief? Oh, my God, she was afraid. She was terrified.'"
"I didn't think I realized until like a couple of -- four days later, five days later -- that what I did was press a big fear button," Gibson told "Good Morning America."
