Winona Ryder claims Mel Gibson called her an 'oven-dodger'

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/celebritynews/8208174/Winona-Ryder-claims-Mel-Gibson-called-her-an-oven-dodger.html

Winona Ryder claims Mel Gibson called her an 'oven-dodger'
Actress Winona Ryder has accused Mel Gibson of making anti-semitic and homophobic remarks to her at a party 15 years ago.
17 Dec 2010

In an interview with GQ, she claimed that in 1995 Gibson called her an "oven-dodger", in reference to the gas chambers that Nazis used to kill millions of Jews during the Holocaust.

"I was at one of those big Hollywood parties. And he was really drunk," Ryder, 39, told the magazine.

"I was with my friend, who's gay. [Gibson] made a really horrible gay joke," she said. "And somehow it came up that I was Jewish. He said something about 'oven dodgers,' but I didn't get it. I'd never heard that before."

Ryder, who was born Winona Horowitz, is half Jewish and in the past has revealed that many of her relatives died in the Holocaust.

A spokesman for Gibson refused to comment.

The allegations come weeks before Gibson's new film The Beaver, about a man in the middle of an emotional crisis, is released.

Gibson's reputation has suffered over the past few years after a string of racist and homophobic outbursts.

Earlier this year he was recorded hurling abuse at his former girlfriend Oksana Grigorieva, allegedly calling her "a pig in heat" and saying that her clothes invited rape.

The foul-mouthed tirades came after the Oscar-winner was arrested in California in 2006 after he was caught drink driving.

Gibson, a devout Catholic, was alleged to have told the police officer that stopped him: "******* Jews. The Jews are responsible for all the wars in the world."