WASHINGTON — A news photographer in Australia says she was verbally and physically abused by actor and director Mel Gibson – and the Academy Award winner’s camp has denied he ever laid a hand on her.

Kristi Miller, a photographer for Australia’s Daily Telegraph, said she was sent to photograph Gibson at a film screening Sunday in Sydney. She said she found Gibson with his girlfriend and, after she took a few shots, the actor snapped and “shoved” her “in the back,” causing her to stumble.

“He was spitting in my face as he was yelling at me, calling me a dog, saying I’m not even a human being and I will go to hell,” she told the Telegraph. “It was nonstop, he didn’t even breathe.”

Miller, a mother of three, said she has been a hard news photographer for 21 years and has shot, among others, former President Bill Clinton. She said Gibson was “completely red in the face” and “out of control,” and told her she needs to get a new job.

“He’s a celebrity,” she said. “I just didn’t expect that from him. I’ve covered courts … you kind of expect it from those people.”

Miller said Gibson’s girlfriend stopped the tirade, pulling the actor away and apologizing.

A representative for the actor said Gibson never touched Miller.

“Basically Mr. Gibson and his friend were being harassed by this photographer and he asked her repeatedly to stop, which she did not,” Gibson’s publicist Alan Nierob told Guardian Australia. “There was never any physical contact whatsoever.”

– From news service reports

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