While the Daily Beast headline dubs Mel Gibson’s seven grown kids the “the holy terrors of Malibu,” but further reading reveals that this may be the one aspect of the Gibson story that isn’t sensational.
Says the Beast,
Little has been written about les enfants Gibson, who are: Hannah, 29; twins Edward and Christian, 27; William (“Willie”), 25; Louis, 22; Milo, 20; and Thomas, 11. Despite their swollen ranks, and the fact that they reside in one of the most the paparazzi-heavy havens in the world-Malibu-they have lived on the down-low, eschewing the spotlight and downright rejecting Hollywood, unlike other ‘Bu-born celebu-spawn, such as brothers Charlie Sheen and Emilio Estevez.
The kids, by all accounts, have had some young-person run-ins with drugs and the law and rich-kid entitlement, but overall are considered pleasant and polite and have settled down into responsible adults. Not club fixtures, no discernible vaguely-defined theatrical ambitions, a total absence of It-Girl designer-collaborations or vanity-column activity. We’ve yet to even see a handbag line. Are these “Hollywood standards?” Of course: the same standards by which a five-year marriage is lauded as a Golden Anniversary and “Hollywood’s Best Dads” seem to be considered those who are photographed occasionally with their children. But still: these people have clearly not asked for attention and to say that “it’s hardly the image that Mel Gibson has cultivated over the years as a serious, family man who is so devoted to his particular brand of Catholicism, that he built his own church in Agoura Hill” – seems beside the point. Not to mention, unfair. Kids, particularly adults, are their own entities. Besides which, there’s surely plenty of muck here without needing to do any raking? Quite literally, Hannah, Edward, Christian, Willie, Louis, Milo and Thomas Gibson have nothing to do with this. (And by the way: if that roster doesn’t match the author’s idea of a “serious Catholic’s” family, I don’t know what does.)
Mel Gibson’s Wild Kids [Daily Beast]