Mel Gibson was spotted bringing his 16-year-old daughter Lucia to a restaurant in the Los Angeles suburbs this week, in a rare joint sighting of the pair.
The 70-year-old actor welcomed Lucia with Russian musician Oksana Grigorieva, 56, whom he was involved with from 2009 until their explosive 2010 split. Gibson, a father of nine, evidently enjoys a warm bond with his youngest daughter, whom he took out for an Italian dinner this Thursday.
Lucia had grown to rival her father's 5'10" stature when the pair were glimpsed heading into the farm-to-table eatery Mediterraneo in Westlake Village that evening. The Daily Mail has contacted Gibson's representatives for comment.
A turbulent split with Lucia's mother
Gibson struck up his romance with Grigorieva while separated from his wife Robyn Moore, the mother of his seven oldest children. Moore and Gibson married in 1980, the year after he shot to stardom in Mad Max, and split in 2009 before finalizing their divorce in 2011.
In 2010, Gibson's relationship with Grigorieva disintegrated into a bruising custody battle over Lucia that grew so rancorous both parents at one point held restraining orders against each other. Grigorieva accused Gibson of domestic violence, triggering a legal drama that culminated in his pleading no contest to misdemeanor battery.
Gibson confessed in legal documents to having slapped Grigorieva once "with an open hand" during a dispute over Lucia, who was then two months old. He maintained in his court filing that Grigorieva had flown into a "hysterical" state and he struck her in an attempt to make her stop "shaking Lucia back and forth," as he was worried the newborn would develop "shaken baby syndrome."
The pair ultimately reached an agreement on joint custody in August 2011, as Gibson's career lay in ruins over leaked audio of him telling Grigorieva on the phone that she would be at fault if she were "raped by a pack of n*****s."
Comeback years after the scandal
Defended at the time by his friends Jodie Foster and Whoopi Goldberg, Gibson worked at a gradual comeback that flowered by 2017 into a best picture Oscar nomination for Hacksaw Ridge, the World War II drama he directed with Andrew Garfield in the lead.
From 2014 until last year, Gibson was dating equestrian vaulter turned screenwriter Rosalind Ross, 36, with whom he welcomed his now nine-year-old son Lars.
'It's my second daughter'
The year he began his relationship with Ross, Gibson rhapsodized to Mario Lopez about the experience of raising Lucia, who at that stage was his youngest child. "She's so cool. It's amazing. It's full of wonder... and I'm not a youngster any more. It's my second daughter. I'm getting a chance to do it better," he said on Extra.
His principal piece of advice on fatherhood was for parents to "listen," he remarked, quipping that his own children "actually tell me what to do."
What's next for Gibson
Gibson has returned to America after finishing directing the Italian shoot of the sequel to his 2004 self-produced blockbuster The Passion of the Christ. Entitled The Resurrection of the Christ, the two-part follow-up is slated for release over the next two years and features Finnish actor Jaakko Ohtonen as Jesus, a role played in the original picture by Jim Caviezel.
