Mel Gets a Monitor for Daughter's Playdate

Not taking any chances, embattled thesp has independent observer supervise weekend visit with infant daughter

Nothing like a little quality time with your kid—and that Family Services-sanctioned observer person standing by the tree.

The troubled Hollywood star had a playdate with 9-month-old daughter Lucia over the weekend. And just to make sure nothing could happen that could be used against him by estranged baby mama Oksana Grigorieva in their vicious custody battle, Gibson voluntarily invited an independent observer approved by the L.A. Department of Children and Family Services to monitor their interactions together, according to People.

So where do you think the Passion of the Christ director spent time with his little angel?

If you guessed Gibson's private Catholic church in Malibu, you'd be right.

We figure his Lucia time proved much more fun than his other playdate on Sunday: with detectives investigating his extortion allegations against his 40-year-old Russian ex-girlfriend.

The observer, who reportedly has a background in family law and was OK'd by DCFS, watched Gibson play with his child on the grounds of the chapel, which he built in 2003 and has been his retreat from various scandals (his anti-Semitic diatribe following his DUI bust, his divorce, his latest heavy-rotation rants) in recent years.

Grigorieva, meanwhile, has just lost her latest spokesman, crisis manager Steven Jaffe, so there was no immediate comment from her camp on what she thinks of the Mel-hired monitor. (For his part, Jaffe said the workload "was dominating all my time" so he decided to step down.)

But based on the erstwhile Lethal Weapon's latest rants released by RadarOnline today—in which Gibson bombards Grigorieva with expletive-laden 3.a.m. phone calls—we can't imagine she'd be happy having him anywhere near Lucia, despite a family court granting him unsupervised visitation rights.

The Los Angeles Sheriff's Department is not only probing Gibson's extortion claims but is also investigating her accusations of domestic violence and child endangerment against the hate-spewing star.

God only knows Gibson's wise to cover his ass.