Mel Gibson’s ready to put scandals behind him

Three and a half years after an arrest for driving under the influence turned into a PR nightmare, and almost a year after his decades-long marriage dissolved amid yet another scandal, Mel Gibson is ready to put the dishonors behind him return to the business of acting.

“It’s more lucrative. It’s fun. It’s my first love,” Gibson told Hello! magazine of his decision to get back in front of the cameras. “I took time away — I felt that I was stale — and I came back and I feel like some kind of maturation happened.”

As for one of those earlier, less mature events that happened, the 54-year-old is over it, even if the public isn’t.

“It’s said that I went into a rant,” Gibson recalled of his infamous anti-Semitic outburst in 2006, “but I think it went on for about five words. I was drunk. It just turned into a big thing. I apologized profusely — not once but three times. So what’s the problem? It’s four years ago. Do I need to apologize again?”