Mel Gibson is under fire after he allegedly mocked a deaf American Sign Language interpreter at Fan Expo Canada over the weekend.
In a video shared on YouTube, the Braveheart actor, 70, took the stage after being introduced by moderator Liam Crowley. Gibson is seen walking out behind an interpreter signing for deaf people in the crowd.
Gibson then turns to the audience and appears to attempt to sign himself before heading over to ScreenRant‘s Crowley, 26, to shake hands and sit down opposite the moderator.
While neither Crowley nor the audience seem to immediately notice Gibson flashing the hand gestures behind the interpreter’s back, users on social media were quick to pick up on it, accusing the Oscar winner of mocking the sign language expert.
“This is despicable!” one user wrote under a since-deleted clip from the expo, with another calling him “a gross human being.”
Another, meanwhile, called on Fan Expo Canada to issue an apology to the interpreter for inviting Gibson to the event, calling him a “bigot and a misogynist.”
“@FANEXPOCANADA owes the interpreter and the deaf community a sincere, profound apology for inviting Mel Gibson to attend knowing he’s a bigot and misogynist.
His actions were grossly disrespectful and inappropriate towards her, and ableist to the deaf and hard-of-hearing community,” the user wrote.
Others called him “cruel,” while another user wrote that Gibson’s attendance at the annual fan fest is the reason they opted out of going to the expo this year.
“Mel Gibson being at Fan Expo was why I didn’t want to go there this year,” the user wrote.
Gibson is no stranger to controversy: He famously made headlines for his 2006 DUI arrest during which he made antisemitic remarks to a Jewish police officer. He later apologized for the comments and said he was “ashamed” of his behavior.
The actor also faced renewed backlash in 2010 after leaked recordings of conversations with his then-girlfriendOksana Grigorievasurfaced, in which he made racist and threatening remarks. Gibson ultimately pleaded no contest to a misdemeanor battery charge stemming from the incident, and largely stayed out of the spotlight, returning only in recent years with a slate of new projects.
The Mad Max star, who was on hand at the Toronto, Canada, expo to promote his new film, The Resurrection of the Christ — due out in 2027 — has yet to address the backlash.
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