Winona Ryder accuses Mel Gibson of calling her an 'oven-dodger'
Winona Ryder has accused Mel Gibson of making anti-Semitic and homophobic comments when the pair bumped into each other at a party over 20 years ago.
The Stranger Things actress claims the Braveheart actor asked her if she was an "oven-dodger" after learning she's Jewish.
In an interview with the Sunday Times, Winona, whose birth name is Winona Laura Horowitz, said: "We were at a crowded party with one of my good friends, and Mel Gibson was smoking a cigar and we’re all talking and he said to my friend, who’s gay, ‘Oh wait, am I gonna get Aids?’ And then something came up about Jews, and he said, ’You’re not an oven dodger, are you?’”
Winona - who claims Mel tried to apologise to her at a later date - was particularly upset by the actor’s comments as she “had family who died in the camps”.
She added: “[I'm] Not religious, but I do identify. It’s a hard thing for me to talk about because I had family who died in the camps, so I’ve always been fascinated with that time.”
However, Mel's representatives have said the claims are "untrue."
Speaking with TooFab, they said: "This is 100% untrue. She lied about it over a decade ago, when she talked to the press, and she’s lying about it now."
"Also, she lied about him trying to apologize to her back then. He did reach out to her, many years ago, to confront her about her lies and she refused to address it with him."
The Beetlejuice star had previously made the accusations against Mel in a 2010 interview with GQ magazine, when she said “no-one believed” her.
She said at the time: “I remember, like, fifteen years ago, I was at one of those big Hollywood parties. And he was really drunk. I was with my friend, who’s gay. He made a really horrible gay joke. 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. It was just this weird, weird moment. I was like, ‘He’s anti-Semitic and he’s homophobic.’ No one believed me!”
With reporting by Bang Showbiz.
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