Mel Seeks Sole Custody as Oksana Speaks Out: 'He Hit Me and Choked Me'

Wonderwall, Thursday, November 18, 2010, 10:41am (PST)

By Kat Giantis

It's becoming all too clear who's going to come out on the losing end of the bitter public battle between Mel Gibson and Oksana Grigorieva: their 1-year-old daughter, Lucia. The latest salvo comes from the rage-aholic, "Hangover"-nixed Oscar winner, who plans to head to court on Monday to try to strip custody from his ex, reports TMZ.

Mel's legal team will apparently ask the judge to grant him sole custody of Lucia, who has spent most of her young life in Grigorieva's care. Also on his wish list: court-monitored visitation for Oksana and no overnight visits.

The reason, according to court documents, is Grigorieva's "false and derogatory statements" about Gibson and her "attempt to sully his character," which, let's face it, was already pretty darned sullied before she came on the scene.

The move follows Oksana's appearance Wednesday night on "Larry King Live," during which she explained her side of the conflict, including the altercation she had with Mel on January 6.

She claims Mel punched her in the face as she held Lucia, breaking some of her teeth; he reportedly maintains that he "slapped" a "hysterical" Oksana with "an open hand" to calm her down (what, he didn't have access to some cold water?).

"This is all about [Lucia] and this is about standing up to domestic violence," Grigorieva told Larry. "It's not okay to be beaten and be silent."

Of the January night in question, "He wasn't drunk. He hit me and choked me in front of my son [12-year-old Alexander, with ex Timothy Dalton] and brandished a gun at me," she maintains.

When Larry asked why she continued to see Mel after that night, Oksana conceded, "That was a mistake. I stayed a little bit too long ... I gave him [a] last chance. He asked me for the last chance. He begged. He cried. He cried on his knees. What am I supposed to do?"

Grigorieva, who had been warned by the judge that speaking out could harm her custody case, believes Gibson's behavior reflects "a person who is losing control -- this is a batterer who's been controlling me for quite a while ... I left him and this is the anger and outrage."

RELATED: Mel and Oksana come face-to-face in court

Oksana, who says she refused to accept Mel's offer of $15 million in exchange for dropping domestic violence charges against him and giving him increased custody, also explained why she secretly recorded his phone calls.

"I wanted my mother to be able to prove that, if I'm dead, that this is who did it," she says of the leaked tapes, on which Gibson can reportedly be heard threatening to kill her, calling her horrible and disgusting names and tossing around the N-word.

RELATED: Mel's heinous rant

Grigorieva repeatedly told King that she never saw Gibson drink, but at the beginning of the relationship, he warned her, "There's a dark side of me I don't want you to see.'"

And when that dark side seemingly emerged during the January dust-up, "He said he would be cured, treated, evaluated," she says, adding, "As a human being, as the mother of his child, I would forgive him, but he really needs to come and acknowledge what he's done and what he's doing."

Before the breakup, Mel admitted that Oksana handled the hands-on parenting.

"I will be honest," Gibson admitted to Jay Leno in January when asked if he got up at night with the baby. "I would say that her mother does the lion's share of that work, but you know, I support her."

Speaking of support, Mel was spotted out in Los Angeles on Wednesday night with ex-wife Robyn to help celebrate the 21st birthday of their son, Milo.

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