Entertainment
Mel Gibson salutes Donald Trump at UFC 264 after previously failing to vote for him
Gibson saluted Trump in Vegas (Picture: Getty)
Mel Gibson saluted Donald Trump as the former President of the United States attended UFC 264 on Saturday night.
The controversial actor and director was in attendance at the fight between Conor McGregor and Dustin Poirier in Las Vegas, and was pictured entering the arena in a black collared T-shirt with sunglasses hanging from his collar.
A video which has now gone viral on Twitter shows a man, believed to be Gibson due to the outfit worn and matching facial hair, giving a military-style salute to Trump when he walked in surrounded by security.
Factchecking website Snopes confirmed that it was Gibson in the video.
The video has attracted major criticism online, with one person tweeting: ‘The crazy thing is, you didn’t even need to know why Mel Gibson was trending to know that he probably did something s***ty. Rest in hell to his dead career.’
Author John Pavlovitz tweeted: ‘Mel Gibson is who we thought he was’, while filmmaker Jeremy Newberger wrote: ‘Mel Gibson liking Trump is about as surprising as David Duke liking fabric softener.’
Another response read: ‘There is no such thing as cancel culture if Mel Gibson isn’t cancelled by now.’
This appears to be the first time Gibson has publicly supported Trump, who left the White House last year after losing the election to now-President Joe Biden.
Prior to Trump’s election, he said in an interview that neither Trump nor Hillary Clinton appealed to him, and said of Trump’s plan to build a wall separating Mexico from the States: ‘Many of these men and women fight and die for their countries and some of them don’t even get their citizenship until after they’re dead. So you know, I think this talk of walls and so forth is nonsensical.’
Gibson later revealed he voted for neither candidate.
However, in an interview with Laura Ingraham last year on Fox News, the 65-year-old hinted at his leanings, saying: ‘I am politically incorrect, that’s true. Political correctness to me is just intellectual terrorism. I find that really scary, and I won’t be intimidated into changing my mind. Everyone isn’t going to love you all the time.’
Previously known for his work in films like Lethal Weapon and Braveheart, Gibson’s career has been overshadowed by a string of controversies in his personal life, with the star having admitted to making anti-Semitic, racist and homophobic comments.
More: Donald Trump
In 2006, the Oscar winner went on an anti-Semitic rant against a police officer who had pulled him over for drunk driving, accusing Jews of being responsible for ‘all the wars in the world’.
Four years later, he made threats towards former partner Oksana Grigorieva and used slurs in a 30-minute voicemail recording – saying: ‘You look like a f***ing pig in heat, and if you get raped by a pack of n*****s, it will be your fault.’
The Braveheart actor has denied, however, calling Winona Ryder an ‘oven dodger’ at a party.
Last year, he claimed Ryder’s recollection that he said: ‘You’re not an oven dodger, are you?’ at a party was ‘100% untrue’.
