Mel Gibson and his baby-mama Oksana Grigorieva came to some kind of settlement yesterday, but I have no idea if this is truly the end of everything. I think this is the end of financial settlement part of Mel and Oksana’s legal drama, but there are probably more custodial issues (for baby Lucia) yet to work out? People Mag says that the custody agreement has been folded into this financial settlement too, but I don’t know. All I know is that in California, Mel Gibson is allowed to punch his girlfriend in the face, claim that she deserved it, and walk away with a slap on the wrists. I know that Mel Gibson is allowed to stalk, harass, threaten and abuse his girlfriend, and then he gets to just write a check for 0.0002% of his net worth (if that) and walk away. I know that this is all very far from over.

To end the acrimonious dispute that practically dates back to the October 2009 birth of their daughter, Lucia, Mel Gibson agreed on Wednesday to pay $750,000 over the next five years to ex-girlfriend Oksana Grigorieva.

The actor-filmmaker will also allow her to continue to live in a house he owns in Los Angeles.

“Thanks, your honor, for bringing this case to a reasonable conclusion,” Gibson, 55, told Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Peter D. Lichtman, who articulated in a hearing the terms agreed upon by the parties over four days of negotiation last week.

Under the deal, Gibson will sell the house when Lucia turns 18 and puts the proceeds in a trust for her.

Also under the deal, the parties are not allowed to publicly discuss each other or their relationship. Lichtman specifically said they also cannot write books about each other.

Grigorieva’s attorney told reporters that his client was in a loving, three-year relationship with Gibson before things went bad, and that she is pleased with the agreement and looking forward to focusing on her daughter and her music career.

“Oksana settled this case today because it’s in the best interests of Lucia,” said attorney Daniel Horowitz.

Under the agreement, custody of Lucia will be shared 50-50. Issues pertaining to child support were presumably discussed behind closed doors and not publicly disclosed.

The agreement settles a civil lawsuit that Horowitz threatened to file on behalf of Grigorieva, 41, and her teenage son, Alexander, whose father is Timothy Dalton. Alexander witnessed an incident last year in which Gibson allegedly assaulted Grigorieva as she was holding Lucia.

To settle the matter in criminal court, Gibson pleaded no contest in March to misdemeanor battery.

[From People]

I can’t believe she only got $750,000. Last year, there were wide reports that Mel had offered her $15 million, which would have included a massive gag order and a similar custody agreement. So… golddigger fail? God knows. I would imagine Mel probably has to pay Oksana’s extensive legal bills, though. Oksana has run up millions in legal bills. So that’s something, at least.

Here are some photos of Oksana coming out of court yesterday:

Photos courtesy of Pacific Coast News, WENN.

Oksana Grigorieva has dropped the domestic violence portion of her complaint against Mel Gibson. Rumor has it that she’s doing it to show the judge that she’s serious about peacefully negotiating custody of her 18 month-old daughter with Mel, Lucia. Of course this leaves the field wide open for people to get judgy about Oksana and claim that Mel never hit her, despite the fact that we’ve heard audio of him admitting to it and saying she deserved it, he’s admitted to slapping her, and we saw photos of the “alleged” damage he did. Maybe Oksana just wants to move on at this point, and she could be sick of paying her high priced lawyers as well.

TMZ and Radar have conflicting reports about this, since TMZ’s sources are obviously Mel’s people and Radar’s source is Oksana. TMZ claims that Oksana is bothering Mel and trying to talk to him when they have custody handoffs, and if that’s the case it sounds perfectly reasonable. They’re trying to co-parent a child together and she probably has a few things she wants to discuss with Mel about their daughter.

Radar quotes a source who says that Oksana “has no interest in communicating directly with Mel or getting back together with him. She doesn’t see the need to speak with him.” Their source (Oksana) goes on to say that while Oksana did let a protection order against Mel lapse, she’s only doing it to show that she has Lucia’s best interests in mind. They also remind us “that she walked away from a $15 million settlement, too, because she is a good parent.”

I’m team toddler on this one. After watching some interviews with Oksana I understand the criticism against her. She didn’t appear truly frightened or genuine and her story was somewhat sketchy. It seems unfair to nitpick her, though, and to say that she’s not acting the victim role well enough. The tapes had Mel saying some outrageous threatening things and there’s no excuse for what he said or did to her. That was despicable and clearly abusive.

Before I read these reports that Oksana and Mel weren’t communicating I assumed they were back together, however. Mike Walker reported in the National Enquirer two weeks ago that a witness saw Oksana and Mel holding hands in Malibu. He wrote:

According to a reliable source who was out running around in the Malibu hills area known as Serra Retreat, he suddenly turned a corner and ran smack into mercurial movie star Mel Gibson – who was strolling peacefully and affectionately arm-in-arm with ex-mistress/baby-momma/supposed mortal enemy Oksana Grigorieva… My source, who knows Mel slightly but is not a professional reporter, did not dare ask the burning question: “Why?” Mel, who owns two homes in the area, just nodded and moved on.

[From The National Enquirer, print edition, Mike Walker's column May 2, 2011]

If that’s true it kind of puts this whole thing into perspective doesn’t it?

Oksana is shown out with Lucia on 3/10/11. Credit: Fame. Mel is shown outside of court on 3/11/11. Credit: WENN

Mel Gibson has already conceded that he slapped Oksana, and now he’s got a new charge to answer: Oksana claims that Mel Gibson used to beat her while they were having sex. Technically, though, they weren’t in the middle of making sweet love because Mel couldn’t get hard. And the only way he could get hard, according to Oksana, was if he beat her. I swear, this is like an episode arc of Law & Order: SVU. Mariska Hargitay is going to say “Who’s the bitch now, Mel?” while Christopher Meloni puts Mel into a headlock in the holding cell.

TMZ has learned … Oksana Grigorieva has just made an explosive allegation under oath that she never before made — that Mel Gibson beat her during sex.

Sources tell TMZ … during Oksana’s deposition Tuesday in her custody war with Mel … she testified that Mel had problems performing and the way he got aroused with her was to beat her.

The claim is as curious as it is shocking, since we’re told Oksana never uttered a peep about such violence in her multiple interviews with the L.A. County Sheriff’s Department.

Oksana has claimed that Mel struck her on January 6, but there is no other allegation of physical violence in the court file — much of which has been reviewed by TMZ — or with law enforcement.

[From TMZ]

Should we bash Oksana for not bringing this up before now, thus giving this tidbit the whiff of implausibility? Why do I even ask? I know some of you Mel-lovers/Oksana-haters will yell at me, but I’m buying Oksana’s story. Because Mel just seems like he would be impotent, right? I feel like that explains so much of rage. It also explains why he always sounded so turned on in those audio recordings where he’s screaming at Oksana. The only thing that can get him hard at this point is screaming slurs and punching women.

Photos courtesy of WENN.

Oksana Grigorieva was on Larry King last night to tell her side of the story. She described Mel’s attack on her the night of January 6th and explained how he hit and choked her and “brandished” a gun. She also denied leaking the phone tapes or trying to extort money from Mel, claiming that she’d walked out on a $15 million offer from Mel to drop the charges and provide him increased visitation with his one year-old daughter, Lucia. As for her motivation for recording Mel, she said that she was afraid that she wouldn’t live through the night and that she also wanted a record for Mel, so that she could show him how he sounded.

I think Kaiser summed up this situation best in her last story on Oksana, in which she wrote that “even with all of her faults as a person, [Oksana is] still a victim of a violent, nasty piece of sh-t who physically and emotionally abused her, and the fact that she’s going to war with him publicly makes me respect her.” My feelings about Oksana changed slightly after watching her on CNN, where she came better than she did in the videos she made for People.com. (Here’s a link describing my impressions at that time, which I don’t want to get into again.) So I agree with Kaiser and do respect the way Oksana is calling Mel out, even though many people are faulting her for that same reason. She’s not a “perfect victim” and is not taking it laying down. E! Online has a very good summary of Oksana’s interview, and you can read the transcript and watch the full video on CNN

“Jan. 6, this year, the beating took place,” Grigorieva recalls in the interview that aired tonight. “Mel actually assaulted me while I was holding the baby in my arms…I ran into my son’s bedroom and told him, ‘Mel’s crazy.’ ”

She says that her 12-year-old son, Alexander (with actor Timothy Dalton), hid behind the bed as she stood there with Lucia, “like a mother protecting her cubs.”

He came into the room “and struck me twice,” she continues. “He wasn’t drunk. He hit me, and choked me in front of my son and brandished a gun at me.”

Gibson was apologizing by the very next day, promising to get “treated” and “be evaluated,” Grigorieva says.

In a signed declaration, one of the supposedly sealed documents from their family court case that have been leaked to the press, Gibson admitted to slapping, but not striking, his ex.

According to the actor, they fought and Grigorieva grabbed Lucia out of her bassinet and started running. “Her rapid movements were causing Lucia’s little body to be flung from one side to the other, her head shaking violently…I slapped Oksana one time with an open hand in an attempt to bring her back to reality,” Gibson stated. “I did not slap her hard. I was just trying to shock her so that she would stop screaming, continuing shaking Lucia back and forth.”

Either way, Grigorieva tells King that she feared for her life afterward and ended up taping Gibson on the phone because she thought she wouldn’t “live through the night,” because he threatened to come over and kill her.

“I wanted my mother to be able to prove that, if I’m dead, that this is who did it,” she says.

And as if the recordings that made it online weren’t disturbing enough, Grigorieva says she has “nonedited” tapes that are “unforgivable.”

Having said her decision to speak out was all about this issue of domestic violence and her daughter, Grigorieva says she thinks victims of abuse are “really decent human beings.”

“They cover up for perpetrators, they’re trying to help them,” she says. “In the back of my mind, I thought, If I don’t killed tonight, I’d like him to hear what he sounds like, to get…better.”

“I wanted to help him, as strange as that may sound.”

Martin Garbus, the attorney who joined her on the air, explained that it is legal to record people without their knowledge in California if one feels his or her life is being threatened or if there are “illegal connotations” in the conversation.

When asked how the tapes got released, Grigorieva says, “I have no idea. They were in possession of my lawyers and the court.”

She says he called her 30 or 40 times in one night, and she recorded him eight or nine times.

Meanwhile, Gibson has accused Grigorieva of making the tapes to extort money from him.

“We think the extortion charges are retaliatory for the domestic violence case,” Horowitz told E! News. “She talks about why she made the tapes. She was fearful and wanted [Gibson] to change. She wasn’t trying to extort him.”

“I never have extorted him,” she says on TV tonight.

Grigorieva admits that not breaking up with Gibson after he supposedly became violent was a mistake.

“I stayed for a little bit too long,” she says. “I gave him last chance. He asked me for the last chance. He begged. He cried. He cried on his knees. What am I supposed to do?”

“At the beginning of our relationship, he said, ‘There’s a dark side of me I don’t want you to see,’ ” Grigorieva tells King, who asks her multiple times about Gibson’s drinking.

“No liquor, not once,” she insists, maintaining that Gibson never drank around her.

“As a human being, as the mother of his child, I would forgive him, but he really needs to come and acknowledge what he’s done and what he’s doing,” she says.

[From E! Online]

A lot of people are going to be wondering about her motivations for coming forward after she’s released all this evidence. I think she wants to share her side of the story, and try and show that she’s not doing this for money. She also is worried about her daughter now that Mel has shared custody. On Larry King, Oksana claimed to be speaking out for domestic violence victims and said “I guess what I’m trying to do is step in for domestic violence, not just for myself, not for this six months of torture that I went through and my daughter, but also other domestic violence victims. Because this is a very high profile case and I have this opportunity to be invited by you. Other victims might not have such a chance to speak up.” Do I believe that’s her main motivation? No. I do believe that she’s telling the truth about Mel, though. We heard him admit hitting her while she was holding the baby and threaten to kill her, and his excuse for that is laughable.

Update: As a result of this interview Mel is filing for full custody of Lucia, claiming “that Oksana’s false and derogatory statements to the media about Mel and the attempt to sully his character show she is not acting in the best interests of Lucai.” This only shows what a mean, petty bastard he is.

Shock of all SHOCKS, Mel Gibson has admitted in a sworn declaration that he slapped Oksana during an argument. This should be enough for all of those drinking the “He never hit her and if he did she deserved it” Kool-Aid, right? Nope. Because Team Glum C-nt is still splitting hairs – Mel claims that he only slapped Oksana because she was shaking baby Lucia, and Mel also says that it was just a slap, not a punch, as Oksana has claimed. Because slapping the sh-t out of a woman is so much more socially acceptable.

TMZ has obtained Mel Gibson’s sworn declaration in the custody war with Oksana Grigorieva, in which Mel admits slapping Oksana because he says she was so hysterical she was endangering the baby … but he denies hitting her.

Mel is referring to the explosive argument between the two on the night of January 6, 2010, which triggered the L.A. County Sheriff’s Department domestic violence investigation. Oksana claims Mel punched her in the temple and in the mouth, knocking out two teeth.

But Mel tells a very different story. According to his declaration, dated June 23, 2010 and filed with the court, Mel says he and Oksana were having one of their frequent arguments at his Malibu home, when Oksana grabbed Lucia out her of bassinet, brought her right in the middle of the argument and screamed, “Stop yelling or you will make her into a retarded brain damaged idiot!”

Mel says Oksana then “spun around,” ran into her older son’s room and then out into the backyard. Mel says the yard is dangerous at night, set on different levels and dimly lit. Mel says Oksana ran across the various levels for about 75 yards, near thorny trees.

Mel says he implored Oksana to bring Lucia back inside, and that’s when Oksana ran back into her older son’s room, and “started swinging Lucia erratically in her arms, jerking her body from side to side to keep Lucia out of my reach.”

Mel adds Oksana was “hysterical” and her “rapid movements were causing Lucia’s little body to be flung from one side to the other, her head shaking violently.” Mel says he feared Shaken Baby Syndrome.

As she refused to hand the baby over and continued with “rough and erratic movements,” Mel says, “I slapped Oksana one time with an open hand in an attempt to bring her back to reality. I did not slap her hard, I was just trying to shock her so that she would stop screaming, continuing shaking Lucia back and forth.”

Mel’s story could establish a defense to a domestic violence charge — using reasonable force to protect a child from injury.

As for Oksana, Mel says, “I did not hit Oksana with a closed fist, as she alleges. I did not ever punch her in the face or in the temple or anywhere else, not then or at any other time.”

Mel admits, “While I do not believe I handled the situation as well as I should have, I was worried about the rough way Oksana was shaking and tossing Lucia around,” adding, “My hand never touched any part of Lucia.” As we’ve already reported, the pediatrician who examined Lucia the next day saw no evidence of injury.

And Mel says, “There was never any blood on Oksana and none of her teeth were ‘broken,’ although one of the false veneers from a tooth apparently did come off, I did not see that occur at the time.”

[From TMZ]

Yeah… I still don’t believe Mel’s version of events, I still think Oksana’s version is probably closer to the truth. But even if you take Mel’s declaration at face value – will his defenders still be crying and whining about how he was never violent? Will they make this all about Mel trying to help his poor baby? That Oksana “deserved” it? Probably. And that’s sad.

As a personal note, I’d just like to add something – there are several commenters who consistently bitch and moan about my anti-Gibson opinions, and even take to mocking me and abused women in general. For those people, I’d just like to say this: I’m not Team Oksana, I just think that even with all of her faults as a person, she’s still a victim of a violent, nasty piece of sh-t who physically and emotionally abused her, and the fact that she’s going to war with him publicly makes me respect her. She’s not laying down and taking it. She’s not keeping her mouth shut. She’s bringing the fight to the man who treated her like sh-t, and she’s hitting him where it hurts: his wallet, his career, and his reputation.

I was going to write about Mel Gibson and Oksana Grigorieva’s lawyers facing off in an LA court on Wednesday, but I found this Liam Neeson story that I thought was more interesting, just because… you know, it’s Liam. And he’s awesome. I’ll get to the court stuff in a second. According to Liam, Mel Gibson isn’t calling Zach Galifianakis in the middle of the night and shouting down the line that Zach needs to give him a beej. No, according to Liam, Mel is “cool” with the way things went down, what with the cast and crew revolting against The Hangover 2’s director and Mel being publicly “fired” (ish) and replaced with Liam.

Liam Neeson says Mel Gibson isn’t mad at him for replacing him in The Hangover 2.

“I spoke to Mel. Mel’s cool about it,” he tells Access Hollywood. “We’re all cool.”

Gibson’s cameo was scrapped after cast and crew complained.

Bradley Cooper, who costarred with Neeson, 58, in this summer’s A-Team, suggested Neeson for the role. Before singing on, Neeson says he chatted with Gibson — the two worked together on 1984′s The Bounty — to make sure it was OK. Neeson says their conversation was “very pleasant.”

Neeson didn’t dish on the cameo, but denied reports that he plays a tattoo artist in the sequel. He also didn’t get to shoot in Thailand, where the sequel takes place.

“No,” Neeson says, laughing. “[Filming] was (at the) Warner Brothers studio. I wish [it was Thailand]!”

The Hangover 2 hits the big screen on May 26, 2011.

[From Us Weekly]

Personally, I think Mel probably was “cool” with Liam, because Mel doesn’t blame Liam for what went down – Mel probably blames everybody else, especially Zach, who was the most vocal. Plus, Mel knows that if push comes to rose garden, Liam could totally take him. Liam is a giant. He could take nearly everybody.

Okay, onto to the Mel/Oksana stuff. They were both in court on Wednesday, and long story short, Mel was ordered to pay Oksana $60,000 in back child support. Oh, and Oksana’s lawyer served Mel with a subpoena during a break. Atta girl, Oksy.

Mel Gibson was ordered Wednesday to pay three months of back child support totaling $60,000 to Oksana Grigorieva for their 1-year-old daughter Lucia, sources tell PEOPLE.

Gibson had delayed making $20,000 monthly payments while his attorneys tried to clarify if he could deduct the $6,000-a-month he pays for the Los Angeles home where Grigorieva, 40, lives with her 61-year-old mother and Lucia, sources say.

During a family court hearing in Los Angeles Superior Court, Judge Scott Gordon denied the housing deduction.

Gibson appeared at the hearing wearing a dark suit and blue shirt and tie. He did not talk with reporters, and his attorney declined to comment. Grigorieva arrived a few minutes later wearing a blazer, tight knee-length skirt, heels and large sunglasses.

Judge Gordon also has been asked by Grigorieva’s camp to end Lucia’s overnight stays with Gibson. Sources say Grigorieva worries about Gibson’s temper and is concerned that a nanny watches their daughter overnight and that the baby cries because she misses her mother.

Gordon was expected to delay making a decision on visitation until another hearing later this year or early in 2011.

[From People]

The custodial stuff is still very strange to me – I find it hard to believe that Mel still has so much access to Lucia, but maybe that will change as all of this stuff gets dragged on and on. Eh. I don’t know. I’m just glad Mel had to cough up some money. I hope the judge made him write a check right then and there.

TMZ has yet another pro-Mel story, although in theory it could be a pro-Oksana story. According to their sources, Oksana believes that Mel was cheating on her with four other women while she and Mel were together. Oksana wants to ask these women if Mel ever abused them – and TMZ notes that they have “no evidence” that Mel ever cheated, or that Mel was ever abusive. Right. Oh, I wonder if one of the four women was that Violet woman? The “Polish porn producer” who gave a few interviews about how she and Mel were boning while he and Oksana were together?

Oksana Grigorieva believes Mel Gibson was cheating on her with multiple women during their relationship — and now she wants to take it a step further and ask the women if the actor ever attacked them … in an effort to prove Mel is too violent to be around their daughter.

TMZ knows of no evidence Mel had relations with any women while he was with Oksana much less any evidence he was violent.

Nevertheless, Oksana’s attorney, Dan Horowitz, tells TMZ his team has hired an investigator to track down at least four women whom Oksana believes may have had secret relations with Mel.

We’re told Oksana’s team wants someone to come forward and say Mel was violent toward them. The end game for Oksana — trying to prove Mel is far too dangerous to be around 1-year-old Lucia.

The judge in the custody case has been unmoved by Oksana’s arguments to date and has given Mel full visitation rights.

And get this … Horowitz tells TMZ he’s provided a soundtrack to keep his investigator motivated … complete with the song, “Looking for Love In All the Wrong Places.”

[From TMZ]

Eh. Do I think Mel was faithful to Oksana while they were together? Nope. But I think Mel’s faithfulness was the least of Oksana’s worries, you know? I mean, I understand the crux of this story – that Oksana would like to hear from any other woman that Mel abused. I’m sure they’re out there. I’m just not so sure they’re going to speak up.

This is the latest from TMZ’s “Oksana is always wrong, FOREVER” files. Apparently, Oksana’s former bodyguard, a dude named Kristian Herzog, is now claiming that he and Oksana have been boning since May. Kristian was fired (I think) from his duties because he had a criminal history involving gun possession or something. Here is his website, The Bodyguard Group, and you can see that he’s guarded many high-profile celebrities, though, so I don’t get what that’s about. Also: he’s the big, beefy bald guy in these photos, and he looks like one of the Village People. Anyway, so Kristian and Oksana have been boning since May, and he has lots of texts and emails to back up his claim, and now he’s going to write a book! Um, scandal? Oksana and Mel have been broken up since January/February… so she could bone anyone she wanted. I guess the scandal is that Kristian is going to “tell all” about what Oksana is “really” like?

Oksana Grigorieva’s bodyguard had an intimate relationship with O.G. since May, and he’s writing a tell-all book that he says will rock the case.

Kristian Herzog — who was recently ordered to stay away from Lucia because of a criminal record involving guns — is telling people connected with the case he was Oksana’s boyfriend for months and still communicates with her on a daily basis.

Herzog is saying he has more than 1,000 text messages and more than 1,000 emails in which he communicates with Oksana about every detail of the case — Mel Gibson, evidence, witnesses, legal strategy and major conflicts between the players.

Herzog certainly had access — we know he was present during virtually every meeting Oksana had with her lawyers.

As for how Herzog can write a book — we’re told he never signed a non-disclosure agreement.

[From TMZ]

Look, I really don’t get why this is so scandalous, and I even doubt the claim that this dude is going to write a book about it. Who would publish this junk? And what’s the scandal? That a single mother f-cked her bodyguard? Oh, wait – is the dude going to reveal that Oksana secretly loved giving blow jobs BEFORE the Jacuzzi? SCANDAL.

Over the past week, People Magazine has slowly been rolling out bits and pieces from their interview with Oksana Grigorieva, done before her lawyers told her to stop speaking to the press. I realize that the full interview probably came out in last week’s print edition of People, but I didn’t get it, and I’m stuck with whatever People puts online. In addition to print excerpts, People has also released a series of video snippets from the interview, which are… difficult. CB and I got into a fight (sort of, not really, we just disagreed strongly) the other day about one of the videos of Oksana. CB’s opinion of Oksana changed drastically after viewing it – CB thought Oksana was coming across as very false and theatrical. I viewed the same video and I found it unnerving, but I also think the weirdness of Oksana talking directly into the camera is adding to the weirdness and discomfort. Eyes for Lies tended to agree with CB – that some of Oksana’s claims were exaggerations or half-truths. My take is still that Oksana is the victim in this situation, and that battered women often make strange and f-cked up decisions, and those discrepancies don’t add up to absolution for the batterer. The two videos can be seen on People’s site here and here… and here are some print excerpts:

As the drama surrounding Mel Gibson and Oksana Grigorieva continued, the Russian-born musician is going into greater detail about the domestic violence she says she suffered at Gibson’s hands. Grigorieva, 40, alleges that a livid Gibson, 54, flew off the handle at her on Jan. 6 in the presence of their 1-year-old daughter Lucia and her 13-year-old son Sasha (from a previous relationship with actor Timothy Dalton).

Gibson’s attorneys declined to comment for this story, but they have repeatedly disputed her allegations. The L.A. District Attorney is determining whether to charge Gibson with for domestic violence, while an L.A. sheriff’s investigation is underway as to whether Grigorieva tried to extort millions from the actor in exchange for keeping explosive audiotapes between the two private. But in an interview with PEOPLE, Grigorieva – who was romantically involved with Gibson for two years – says the star became enraged on Jan. 6 for no specific reason and repeatedly struck her while she held Lucia and Sasha cowered under the bed.

“When the domestic violence event happened … we were completely terrified and devastated,” Grigorieva tells PEOPLE. “Mel kept spitting on my face until it was covered in saliva …he kept screaming like a crazy man. It’s a scary sight.”

“He says get the eff out and then he pulls a gun out,” she says. “He could have killed us all.”

They were the tapes heard ’round the world. But Oksana Grigorieva, Mel Gibson’s ex-girlfriend, vehemently denies that she is the one who made them public.

“Have you heard those tapes? Have you listened to them? What he says, is that not violence? It’s an emotional rape. I’ve never leaked those tapes,” she says of the audio that surfaced in July in which the actor can be heard raging against Grigorieva in a series of explosive phone calls. She says she does not know how the tapes surfaced.

Grigorieva, 40, also denies that she ever attempted to extort any money from Gibson, 54.

An L.A. Sheriff’s investigation is underway as to whether Grigorieva attempted to extort millions from Gibson in exchange for keeping the tapes private. Meanwhile, the L.A. district attorney is determining whether to charge Gibson with domestic violence. Gibson’s attorneys declined to comment about Grigorieva’s interview in the new issue of PEOPLE, but his side has repeatedly disputed her allegations.

Grigorieva maintains that her primary focus is the couple’s 1-year-old daughter Lucia, who lives with her mom but sees her dad nearly every other day, including overnight visits once a week. “I’m only fighting for my daughter,” says Grigorieva. “He needs to understand that … and stop destroying me and my name.”

Why is she speaking out so publicly? “I’d like for people to know the real Mel Gibson,” she says. “Even though he’s rich and famous, he’s a bully … And I want other women that are in my situation to stand up to the bullies, even though it’s difficult and scary.”

[From People Mag - here and here]

Were Mel Gibson’s words “emotional rape”? Well… in my opinion, yes. I certainly felt like I needed to take a shower (in a bad way) after I heard the collection. Now, do I think Oksana is telling the truth about how Radar got the tapes? No. Even if Oksana didn’t physically hand them over to someone at Radar, I think she was behind the release of the tapes. And I really don’t blame her for that at all – I think it’s good that people see what an abusive prick Mel is. But I wish Oksana would just stop denying that she had anything to do with the release.

A few weeks ago, Radar began reporting that Oksana Grigorieva would give her first big interview (post-Glum C-nt tapes) to Oprah. It seemed like a good move for both Oprah and Oksana, and I approved. Unfortunately, it’s not going to happen. Oksana’s lawyers had to withdraw out of the Oprah interview because of a new custodial/financial/legal agreement between Mel Gibson and Oksana that precludes her from giving any interviews, I think.

Mel Gibson’s ex-girlfriend Oksana Grigorieva won’t be talking to Oprah after all.

Grigorieva and Gibson just hashed out a joint-custody deal for their daughter Lucia, in which Gibson has been ordered to pay $20K a month in child support.

Due to the nature of the proceedings in family court, a judge has put a gag order on the couple, EOnline.com reports, keeping Oksana off Oprah’s couch.

“Neither party in the case should be speaking,” a source told E! However, Oksana already gave an exclusive interview to PEOPLE magazine, out this week, upsetting her lawyer.

“The lawyers had to put a stop to [Oprah] because it is a violation of the judge’s seal,” the source added. “But the PEOPLE magazine interview already took place, so they couldn’t stop that.”

[From PopEater]

Yes, Oksana managed to give an “exclusive” to People Magazine just before the bell was rung. She didn’t get the big cover though – People’s cover this week is devoted to bullies and cyber-bullies, with a top sidebar thing of Oksana saying “I thought he would kill me.” I saw a little preview of the piece on the Today show this morning, and People just released a short excerpt:

You’ve heard the tapes. Now Oksana Grigorieva, Mel Gibson’s former girlfriend, is speaking out about their relationship – and her claims that Gibson was abusive to her.

In a wide-ranging interview with PEOPLE, Grigorieva, 40, talks in detail about the argument during which she says Gibson, 54, hit her while she was holding their baby, Lucia.

“I thought he would kill me,” says Grigorieva. (Gibson, who declined to comment for this story, has disputed her account and a source close to him has said he intervened when she was shaking the baby.)

The Russian-born musician says Gibson often flew into jealous rages, talked about suicide and once brandished a gun in front of her.

She also discusses why she decided to tape Gibson’s angry phone calls. “I needed to document his threats,” says Grigorieva, who denies she leaked the tapes. She also refutes Gibson’s claim that she used the tapes to extort him.

“I’m not angry at him,” she says. “For the sake of Lucia, I really want him to be well. He has to have the courage to be responsible for what he’s done.”

[From People]

Yeah – the interview sounds pretty basic. It’s what I would expect her to say – Mel was violent and insane, I was just trying to document the abuse, it wasn’t about the money, et cetera. I know there are so many people who don’t see her as a victim, but I do. I guess we’ll just have to disagree on it.

UPDATE: Today just released their video excerpts of People’s story. Here’s the video: