ABC announced on Tuesday that it is ceasing development on a new miniseries about the Holocaust. The project was being created with Mel Gibson’s production company, Icon.

“Given that it has been nearly two years and we have yet to see the first draft of a script, we have decided to no longer pursue this project with Icon,” said ABC spokesperson Hope Hartman, according to Reuters.

However, most see the move as a reaction to anti-Semitic remarks made by Gibson when he was arrested for drunk driving last week.

The actor is known for holding strongly conservative, Catholic views on religion and politics. And Gibson’s father is a Holocaust denier.

On Tuesday, Gibson finally admitted to making the anti-Jewish comments. In a statement, he apologized to “everyone in the Jewish community for the vitriolic and harmful words.”

Gibson has also entered a rehabilitation program to battle alcoholism.

Here is Mel Gibson’s complete statement, released to the media on Tuesday:

There is no excuse, nor should there be any tolerance, for anyone who thinks or expresses any kind of anti-Semitic remark. I want to apologize specifically to everyone in the Jewish community for the vitriolic and harmful words that I said to a law enforcement officer the night I was arrested on a DUI charge.

I am a public person, and when I say something, either articulated and thought out, or blurted out in a moment of insanity, my words carry weight in the public arena. As a result, I must assume personal responsibility for my words and apologize directly to those who have been hurt and offended by those words.

The tenets of what I profess to believe necessitate that I exercise charity and tolerance as a way of life. Every human being is God’s child, and if I wish to honor my God I have to honor his children. But please know from my heart that I am not an anti-Semite. I am not a bigot. Hatred of any kind goes against my faith.

I’m not just asking for forgiveness. I would like to take it one step further, and meet with leaders in the Jewish community, with whom I can have a one on one discussion to discern the appropriate path for healing.

I have begun an ongoing program of recovery and what I am now realizing is that I cannot do it alone. I am in the process of understanding where those vicious words came from during that drunken display, and I am asking the Jewish community, whom I have personally offended, to help me on my journey through recovery. Again, I am reaching out to the Jewish community for its help. I know there will be many in that community who will want nothing to do with me, and that would be understandable. But I pray that that door is not forever closed.

This is not about a film. Nor is it about artistic license. This is about real life and recognizing the consequences hurtful words can have. Its about existing in harmony in a world that seems to have gone mad.






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