Heaven and Mel (Kindle Single) (15 page)

When my letter to Mel leaked, as I was sure it would, it would put a kind of protective cordon around Oksana. (It would work the same way for me, too). If Mel did something to her — "no one will know" —
the whole world would know!

My letter would serve to disarm Mel Gibson as far as Oksana was concerned. Medication and psychiatric therapy were necessary to disarm him from hurting anyone else.

* * * *

ON THE MORNING OF FEBRUARY 9TH
, I woke up and asked Naomi to email my letter to Bjorn Pork.

Naomi discovered that Bjorn Pork was dead.

Mel's email address was no longer valid.

She emailed the letter to Nick Guerra, Mel's assistant.

A few days later, I got a call from Sharon Waxman, who headed a website called The Wrap. She told me that she had in her possession my letter to Mel Gibson. Naturally, she didn't tell me how she'd gotten it. I confirmed to her that the letter was authentic and that I had written it.

I knew it would leak, but I was happy it hadn't leaked to Deadline Hollywood, a website that competed with The Wrap. I knew that Alan Nierob was close to Deadline Hollywood. He had spoon-fed the announcement of our Maccabee project to Deadline and told me he was taking it there because "those people are friends of mine."

The world blew up — as we knew it would.

* * * *

THE WRAP POSTED MY LETTER
on its website and my phone, usually quiet, assumed a life of its own. So did Naomi's cell. Just about every news source in the world called us.

I still hadn't heard from Mel… but now I knew I would.

Alan Nierob, I was sure, was probably over at Mel's house in Malibu along with a woman who was a so-called "Hollywood journalist," but who was also hooked up with Mel on a television project.

I could see Alan and the "Hollywood journalist" writing Mel's response to me… while Mel himself, wired on caffeine and nicotine, danced around sucking on cigarettes. I suddenly had an image of Mel saying the Exorcist's Prayer over every page of my nine-page letter.

I could hear Mel saying, "I want him on his knees! I want Eszterhas to come to me on his knees!"

* * * *

ALAN NIEROB SENT ME AN EMAIL.
It said, "This makes me so sad."

I sent him one back.

It said, "Me too."

* * * *

WHEN MY LETTER TO MEL WENT VIRAL,
thanks to The Wrap, Jeff Berg called me and said:

"You know what? This town has given Mel Gibson a free pass all these years. When he got arrested on the drunk driving charge, he reached out to me for help. And even though I didn't represent him, I made some calls for him. I'm ashamed of myself. You put an end to the free pass."

In another call on another day in this scrambled week, Jeff called, and at one point during the conversation, said, "You're the King of the Jews!"

I sort of liked that, until I remembered that The Other Guy who'd been called "The King of the Jews"… got himself beaten half to death… and then nailed to a tree.

* * * *

MEL RELEASED HIS LETTER TO THE MEDIA
in response to mine the next day. He called me a liar. While talking about "utter fabrications," he refused to respond to my allegations individually.

I knew why. Alan Nierob, who'd worked with me and represented me for years, didn't know what — if anything — there was on "Nick's Tape." There were some websites that said they believed "Nick's Tape" was a hoax, that it didn't exist.

But Alan Nierob knew me better. He knew I didn't bluff. Alan knew, even if everyone around him was doubting it, that there was a tape. But he didn't know what was on it.

His worst nightmare was this: Mel denies something specifically in my letter and "Nick's Tape" proves that what I have written is true.

Mel's letter said it was all my script's fault.

"Honestly, Joe," Mel wrote, "In twenty-five years of script development I have never seen a more substandard first draft or a more significant waste of time."

That made me laugh. I envisioned Judah Maccabee brandishing his sword above Mel's head, threatening to cut it off.

* * * *

I DECIDED TO DO ONE INTERVIEW
. I picked the "Today" show. I decided to do the interview because Mel Gibson had called me a liar.

The way I was raised, if someone called you a liar, you had to either stand up or run. I had no intention of running.

I had done the "Today" show often through the years and my interviewers had always been fair.

I turned every other interview request down. There were forty-two of them before the end of the day. This is what I told the "Today" show. Ann Curry did the interview.

Curry: What was in your view the most egregious episode that you witnessed?

Me: The most egregious episode had to do with my fifteen-year-old son Nick who was with us in Costa Rica as Mel's guest. Mel shared with him a pornographic scenario that I can only call sexual butchery — that he fantasized in terms of Oksana. Nick is fifteen years old, and to put this kind of imagery into a fifteen-year-old boy's head, I think, is heinous. I think it's vile and I think it's unforgivable…

Curry: Why would you stick it out and finish a screenplay with a man who has said such a thing?

Me: I didn't have anything to do with Mel personally since that incident. We were supposed to go on his plane to his house in Malibu after that incident. I canceled those plans because I didn't want my wife and my son around him. … The script is a different matter. I had a contract to do the script. I was very excited about doing the script, because it's a wonderful story, a truly inspiring story, of glorious Jewish heroism. … And to tell the story of the Maccabees in this glorious way, this triumphant way — I jumped at it. One of the first red lights that I got, that really put me off, is that Mel said to me that… he wanted to do a movie "that would convert the Jews to Christianity."
That's not the Maccabees.
The Maccabees truly is a Jewish Braveheart. The piece I wrote is a Jewish Braveheart. I'm proud of it…

Curry: Joe, this is really becoming a he said/he said situation. What proof do you have, because so far you're the only source for this information, that Mel Gibson had these rants and said these things? What proof do you have?

Me: I have a tape that my fifteen-year-old son made in the middle of a violent harangue in Costa Rica, a threatening harangue, where he said the vilest and most threatening things…

Curry: You know … that Mel Gibson released a statement. He's called everything that you said "utter fabrications" and he's called your script "substandard." Are you planning to release this videotape that you say you have, that is proof of what you're alleging?

Me: I don't know what I'm going to do with the videotape…

* * * *

THE MEDIA PLAYED IT
in Ann Curry's words: "he said/he said." There was no proof, the news accounts said.

My grown daughter, Suzi, who lives in Marin County, California, got an anonymous email saying,
"Tell your dad to release the Mel Gibson rant. Let him know that Kata (Mel's property manager) has agreed to say that your dad is a lying SOB! Kata will do anything to protect Mel. Releasing the tape is the only way to teach that monster a lesson and clear your dad's name. Your dad will know what this means!"

The email was signed "
Anonymous.
"

I liked Kata and didn't believe she'd lie, even though she worked for Mel.

I had no idea who'd sent the email. It was sent from a walk-on email site. Anyone could walk in and send anything anonymously. It was impossible to track.

Meanwhile, my grown son Steve, who lived in Portland, Oregon, was awakened at 7:00 one morning. He had only gotten to bed a few hours earlier.

"Is this Steve Eszterhas?" the caller asked.

"Yes," Steve Eszterhas said groggily. "Who's this?"

"This is Harvey Levin from TMZ."

"What's that?" Steve said, "Who are you?"

Harvey Levin, a very successful and well-known man, explained who he was and said, "We'd like to buy the tape."

"What tape?" my barely awake son asked.

"Nick's Tape," Harvey Levin said.

"Nick who?" Steve said.

"Nick Eszterhas, your brother," Harvey Levin said.

"I don't know what you're talking about," Steve said, and hung up on him.

Steve called me instantly.

"Pops!" Steve said to me. "What the fuck is going on?"

* * * *

WE DECIDED TO RELEASE "NICK'S TAPE."

We didn't sell it to anyone. We just put it out there. Nick made our decision. "You've got to do this," Nick said to me. "This tape shows exactly who he is. He's sick. He needs help."

We released it to The Wrap. The site had been fair to me and I wasn't about to give it to Alan Nierob's (and Mel's) pals at Deadline Hollywood.

This is what was on "Nick's Tape":

Mel (screaming the whole time): "Why don't I have a first draft of The Maccabees? What the fuck have you been doing? I'll type it!"

Mumbling inaudible.

"It's her!"

Mumbling inaudible.

Mel, continuing to scream, "I go to work, you're getting paid, I'm not! Shit! I'm earning money for a filthy little cocksucker (Oksana) who takes advantage of me! Just like every motherfucker! So hurry the fuck up!"

Mel throws things and knocks down a totem pole in the billiard room.

Mel, screaming, "Fuck! God!"

Mel comes up from the billiard room and approaches the dining room table and screams at the top of his lungs in the face of his guests.

Mel: "Who wants to eat?! Who the fuck wants to eat!? Go have something to eat!
Hurraaayyyy
!"

Mel, screaming, "Fuck! Fuck! Fuck! Fucking hate! Fucking cunt cocksucker whore!"

Mel runs toward the driveway.

Mel, screaming, fading away, "Fuck!"

* * * *

"
NICK'S TAPE" WENT GLOBAL
within minutes after it appeared on The Wrap. It was everywhere. All the other sites simply stole it. "Nick's Tape" was on YouTube within hours.

His tape was a knockout punch for our side.

"This isn't 'He said/He said' anymore," one website reported. "This is 'that's all she wrote' for Mel Gibson." Many websites wrote variations of "Is This the End for Mel Gibson?"

"Hell of a way to cover my back," I said to Nick.

"Anytime," he said.

The night that "Nick's Tape" went global, Mel Gibson was appearing in Austin, Texas, at the premiere of "Get the Gringo."

Mel and the film's director, Adrian Grumberg (Mel's former assistant director), spoke with moderator Harry Knowles.

Knowles said to Grumberg: "I see that you've got a Star of David on. How was it — did y'all have any trouble working together or anything?"

"I hate his guts," Grumberg said, and then added that he got along fine with Mel.

Moments later, co-writer Stacy Perskie said, "I'm Jewish."

Mel looked at Perskie and said, "Funny, you don't look Jewish."

Movieline reported that when they heard that, the audience "audibly gasped."

* * * *

LUKIE AND NAOMI WERE DRIVING
to the market and he was staring out the window. Suddenly he turned to his mother and said, "Do you think Mel Gibson is going to come here and try to kill us?" That was our eleven-year-old boy, on the way to buy Popsicles with his mother, asking if a Hollywood movie star was going to come across country to kill us.

A close friend of mine, who happens to be a billionaire, called me from Las Vegas and said, "I'm going to hire four body guards for you. And I don't want you to argue with me, either." I argued with him and convinced him that having four people around the house with guns would frighten the kids more than anything else.

But I called a friend named Jack Silvis, a high-ranking cop in the Bainbridge Township Police Department, a five-tour fighter pilot in Iraq and Afghanistan.

I didn't have to tell Jack what was going on. He'd seen and heard it all online and on TV.

"If he shows up here," Jack Silvis said, "he'll be making the biggest mistake of his life."

I did a Skype interview with Sharon Waxman of The Wrap. She asked if I was concerned about my own personal safety.

I said, "My favorite prayer is 'Thy will be done, not mine. Do with me what you will, my Lord.'"

* * * *

MEL ANNOUNCED
that he would have a part in a sequel to Robert Rodriguez's grindhouse film "Machete," a violent, lurid, potboiler.

I wondered if, in "Machete II," Mel could finally act out the homicidal sexual fantasy that he had described so graphically to my son.

* * * *

ONE OF THE PRODUCERS
associated with "The Passion of the Christ" called and told me two things.

He said Mel said to him, "I used to think of suicide, but since "The Passion" I never do."

And he said that when he asked Mel why Mel insisted on driving the nails into Christ's hand himself during filming, Mel told him, "That's my other side."

* * * *

MEL DID "THE TONIGHT SHOW
WITH JAY LENO."

The focus was on "Nick's Tape."

Mel: "A guy tapes you in your own home — in the privacy — has it really come to the place — if you can't blow off steam in your own home, even if you're justified?"

Leno: "And you didn't know he was taping it?"

Mel: "Of course not.

Leno: "Was it just you swearing at the guy?"

Mel: "Yeah. Pretty much. Maybe you don't know this about me. I've got a bit of a temper."

It was supposed to be funny, but it wasn't. It was all lies, more lies, but it didn't surprise me. Mel had told me that Leno was a friend of his.

"
Blowing off steam in your own home
": Did that mean vandalizing his own home, scaring the kids out of the house, making my wife sob, forcing my son to grab a butcher knife to defend himself with? Was all of that just "blowing off steam?"

"
Was it just you swearing at the guy?
" He swore at me (barely), swore viciously at Oksana, swore at God, and terrified everyone there.

I've got a bit of a temper
: More "humor": It wasn't a temper, it wasn't letting off steam, it was a crazed, reckless, berserk rampage that, I feared, would one day kill someone.