Winona Ryder Says Mel Gibson Once Called Her An 'Oven Dodger'

Gibson, infamous for an anti-Semitic rant at a California cop, was on a bigoted roll at a party, the "Stranger Things" actor recalled.
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ā€œStranger Thingsā€ star Winona Ryder discussed her Jewish heritage in an interview ā€• and who but Mel Gibson showed up in an anecdote about anti-Semitism sheā€™s experienced.

Gibson, whose drunken anti-Jewish rant at a California cop in 2006 derailed his career for years, was on a bigoted roll years earlier at a Hollywood bash where Ryder said she saw him.

Ryder, born Winona Laura Horowitz, told the Sunday Times of London:

ā€œWe were at a crowded party with one of my good friends, and Mel Gibson was smoking a cigar, and weā€™re all talking and he said to my friend, whoā€™s gay, ā€˜Oh wait, am I gonna get AIDS?ā€™ And then something came up about Jews, and he said, ā€˜Youā€™re not an oven dodger, are you?ā€™ā€

Ryder shook her head, incredulously, as she told the story, according to the Sunday Times. Gibson ā€œtriedā€ to apologize later, she added.

A rep for Gibson disputed Ryderā€™s claim, telling HuffPost: ā€œThis is 100% untrue. She lied about it over a decade ago, when she talked to the press, and sheā€™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.ā€

Ryder has previously referenced the incident, which seems to date to the mid-1990s.

The slur story surfaced in a wide-ranging Sunday Times profile of the 48-year-old ā€œPlot Against Americaā€ actor, who said she had relatives die in Nazi camps. It caught Twitterā€™s attention.

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