A viral Facebook post claims actor Mel Gibson said Hollywood “is an institutionalized pedophile ring.”

Verdict: False

There is no evidence Gibson said the comments attributed to him in the post. His publicist has confirmed the attribution is false.

Fact Check:

The lengthy post claims that Gibson, an actor known for his roles in films such as “Braveheart” and “Signs,” made a number of comments exposing the supposed “epidemic of ‘parasites’ who ‘control Hollywood’ that are involved in child sacrifice and pedophilia” after a 2017 appearance on “The Graham Norton Show.” He made the comments in a green room backstage, the post alleges.

“It’s difficult to comprehend, I know, and I’m sorry that I am the one to break this to you, but Hollywood is an institutionalized pedophile ring,” he supposedly said. “They use and abuse kids for their own sick ‘spiritual beliefs,’ if you can even call them that. I don’t fully understand it myself, but they harvest these kids for their energy and feast on their blood.”

There is, however, no evidence to support that Gibson said the comments. While Gibson did appear on “The Graham Norton Show” in 2017 to promote the movie “Daddy’s Home 2,” he did not mention anything to that effect during it. The Daily Caller News Foundation found no news reporting about Gibson making the comments in the green room afterward or anywhere else.

“I can assure you that he never said such a thing,” Alan Nierob, Gibson’s publicist, told the fact-checking website Lead Stories. “In fact I, as well as representatives from Paramount studios, were with Mr. Gibson at that taping as well as with him for his entire promo tour, and he never stated that nor anything close to resembling those comments, period.”

The text being shared appears to originate from a now-deleted 2017 article published by YourNewsWire, a website known for sharing misinformation. It does not provide sourcing for its claims. YourNewsWire now goes by NewsPunch, and the article is not available on NewsPunch’s new website. (RELATED: Did Kurt Russell Suggest That Democrats Are ‘Enemies Of The State’?)

Despite the lack of evidence Gibson ever actually made these comments, they have frequently been attributed to him online since at least 2017.

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