Mel Gibson hospitalised after shock COVID-19 diagnosis

Mel Gibson spent a week in hospital being treated for COVID-19, his US representatives have confirmed. The controversial Australian Hollywood star was admitted to hospital in the US after testing positive to the illness.

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Mel Gibson spent a week in hospital being treated for COVID-19.

The controversial Australian Hollywood star was admitted to hospital in the United States after testing positive to the illness.

American representatives for the 64-year-old Lethal Weapon actor confirmed the diagnosis.

“He tested positive in April and spent a week in the hospital,” Gibson’s representative said.

Mel Gibson out and about in Malibu earlier this month. Picture: Mega Agency

Mel Gibson in Brisbane in 2018. Picture: AAP Image/Claudia Baxter

“He was treated with the drug Remdesivir, while in the hospital, and has tested negative numerous times since then as well as positive for the antibodies.”

Two-time Academy Award winner Gibson has been based in the US for several decades.

There, the coronavirus has seen the biggest impact in the world with 146,000 deaths to date and more than four million people testing positive.

Gibson dealt with the illness in private. He has been in the headlines after actor Winona Ryder claimed in a recent interview that the Australian had asked if she was an “oven dod­ger” at a party in the mid-’90s.

The father of nine has denied the allegation, which was first raised by Ryder in 2010. The actor was previously at the centre of another anti-­Semitic controversy after video emerged of a rant during his 2006 drunk driving arrest.

Actor and director Joanne Samuel recently came out of defence of Gibson in an interview with Confidential, describing him as “a wonderful loyal friend”.

Samuel played Gibson’s on screen wife in George Miller’s 1979 flick, Mad Max, with the pair remaining friends for more than four decades.

Mel Gibson on the set of Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome, directed by George Miller and George Ogilvie.

“I just take all of that stuff with a grain of salt really because I know him and I know what he is like,” Samuel said. “He is such a generous man and such a lovely person. He is like you and I or anybody else; he has his good side and he struggles with different things but not all of us have a camera and people running around after us everywhere to capture that stuff and make of it what they will. I know him as a good friend; he is loyal, wonderful, very generous, talented, creative, great guy. I don’t know how he lives with it myself.”

Mel Gibson and Sean Penn in a scene from the movie The Professor and the Madman.

Originally published as Mel Gibson hospitalised after shock COVID-19 diagnosis