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.