Mel Gibson is finally addressing the proverbial elephant in the room.
Following yet another one of his raging rants-caught-on-tape, the Get the Gringo star hit The Tonight Show and commented for the first time about his now infamous tirade against Showgirls screenwriter Joe Eszterhas.
"Maybe you don't know this about me, but I've got a little bit of a temper," Gibson quipped of the profanity-filled rant, which Eszterhas taped unbeknownst to him while they were together in Costa Rica in December.
Eszterhas was originally hired to write the first draft of Gibson's now-in-limbo passion project, The Maccabees, but the flick hit a snag when the screenwriter reportedly failed to produce an acceptable script.
Then, to make matters worse, The Wrap obtained a nine-page letter from the writer in which he accused Gibson of using anti-Semitic remarks throughout his writing process, among other things.
Gibson denied those claims, replying in a letter to Eszterhas, "I was very frustrated that when you arrived at my home at the expense of both Warner Brothers and myself you hadn't written a single word of a script or even an outline after 15 months of research, meetings, discussions and the outpouring of my heartfelt vision for this story."
And that frustration was still evident as the 56-year-old thesp continued to share his side of the script fiasco with Jay Leno.
"The guy writes a nine-page letter...if he put half as much time and effort and creativity and imagination into a screenplay, which he was supposed to write, as he did into that letter...we wouldn't be having this conversation," Gibson said on the show. "It's kind of like you build a house, you hire a guy to put a roof on it. He comes over and talks about the roof and then you get rained on all night."
Needless to say, Gibson wasn't game for an on-air apology.
Saying he felt justified in the rant, Gibson explained, "A guy tapes you in your own home...when did it come to the place where you can't blow off steam in your own home?"
On the tape, which Eszterhas released to the media, Gibson can be heard yelling, "Why don't I have a first draft of The Maccabees? What the f--k have you been doing?" among other expletives.
Consider this feud still on.