Mel Gibson’s divorce from long suffering wife Robyn is finally settled. The loser may be his private church, the Holy Family Church of Agoura Hills, California. With money tight, and no one exactly clamoring to see Gibson screen, Holy Family only received a fraction of its usual annual donation from Mel.
In 2011, Gibson parked a measly $1.2 million with his AP Reilly Foundation, which funds the church. Most of that–about $786,000–went to paying off depreciation on the property.
In past years, Mel has put tons more into AP Reilly. In 2010, he put in about $6.8 million. In 2009, the number was closer to $10 million. Prior to that, Mel had been funneling money into AP Reilly in big clumps. The total value of fair market assets is up to $68 million.
But times have changed, and so have Mel’s financial circumstances. Robyn may have walked away with $400 million after more than 25 years of marriage and 7 children.
No one else but Mel donates money to Holy Family, which Gibson built several years ago for himself, his crazy father, and a bunch of worshipers who deny that the Pope is in charge of the Catholic church and that Vatican II ever happened back in 1965. (If there are indeed other members of this church, and they do put money in a parish plate, it never shows up in the church’s tax returns.) The Arch Diocese does not recognize Mel’s church.
Mel’s 94 year old father, Hutton Gibson, is also an avowed Holocaust denier and author of articles written for neo Nazi publications. (As I wrote in 2009: in 2003, the Pittsburgh Post Gazette reported Hutton Gibson was a featured speaker at a conference sponsored by the Barnes Review and the American Free Press, both of which regularly carry anti-Semitic articles and reprint writings by Adolf Hitler and other Nazi leaders.)
Gibson may have to count his pennies a little more closely these days. His last movie, “Get the Gringo,” was shown on Direct TV before going straight to video. His next film, “Machete Kills,” with Charlie Sheen, will be distributed by 20th Century Fox.
