When Will the Mel Gibson Tapes Stop Coming?

When will the flood of tapes finally cease?

Are there really 30 more tapes of Mel Gibson yelling at his ex?! When will the world finally say enough and demand that the leaked phone conversations stop? We get it; there are a lot.

— Rebbie, Australia, via the Answer B!tch inbox

You don't stop art, dear.

And creative verbal abuse certainly has risen to an art form in recent weeks; who knew that one relatively small man could belittle African Americans, women and Latinos without so much as pausing for air? You may have moved on to other outlets for your schadenfreude, but most of the planet, apparently, has not.

What can those folks expect from Gibson's amazingly talented mouth in coming weeks? Well...

We already know about the very latest Gibson rant, a sort of marathon that—reportedly—involved 30 calls to Grigorieva in a single night. (RadarOnline has all the nastiest bits up on its site, along with all the other tirades thus far.) But don't be shocked if there's still more to come.

"The exact number of recordings has not been released or reported yet," David Perel, founder and executive vice president of RadarOnline.com, tells me. "Obviously, RadarOnline.com has quite a few audio tapes and yes, we do have more. We will be posting them on the site as we continue to report on the Mel Gibson story."

And why will they continue to report it? Because demand for these stories has not dipped. At all. Not even a little, Perel tells me.

"Interest in the Mel-Oksana story is as strong as ever, at times stronger than ever," Perel says. "Our audio tapes were even responsible for the ratings rise of several syndicated entertainment TV shows that we allowed to play portions of the tapes."

Hear that? The story is so big that it's causing a chain reaction of bigness.

You'd think that Grigorieva might regret the way these leaks have dribbled out; her image hasn't exactly risen in popularity since all this started. Still, it's Gibson's persona that has taken the bigger hit.

My friends at the Davie Brown Index have exclusively shared their latest data with me, and it isn't good.

Among the general public, Gibson's "appeal" score has plunged by more than 15 points; where he once ranked among fairly likable talents such as Steve Harvey, Gibson now shares the same stratum as Andy Dick, Tiger Woods and Rosie O'Donnell.

In fact, of the 2,540 celebrities in the Celebrity DBI database, Gibson now ranks at No. 2494 in terms of appeal.

When it comes to trust, it's even worse: Gibson now ranks on the same level as Charlie Sheen.

Can Gibson's image sink any lower? I guess it all depends on how many more leaks we see.