Am I the only one who feels sorry for Mel? I don't know all the details but it looks like he was taken for a ride by some kind of succubus!
There's a part on the tape where he says (paraphrasing), "I don't have any friends and I tried to make one in you."
Jacobi,
I am still reading all the posts in this thread so everyone forgive me if I say something off because I haven't read everything yet. I have always admired Webslueths and enjoy reading. I usually don't post, but I wanted to respond to this post. I "feel sorry for Mel" in SOME ways. The tirade seems to be a drunken angry venting of emotions that go WAY back further than this woman has been alive! While I wouldn't want to be on the other end of the conversation by any means, MOO is that she is "setting him up".
As you say, he does say that he has no friends. I think most of his "friends" were probably connected to his wife and left his side when he left hers. I think any friends they had probably did not like him leaving his wife for Oksana. I am a female, who was in a mentally/emotionally abusive first marriage and am by NO MEANS taking up for Mel's behavior, nor do I have a clue if he is as bad as he sounds on that call.
Oksana is far from "scared" sounding on her end and she is very controlled and clipped. She appears to know exactly what buttons to push, "you need help" "you need medication", etc...to start him on another tirade. I began to wonder when she suddenly has a dentist who just HAPPENED to take pictures of her veneers/or was it her actual teeth (2 stories going around) NOT because he would turn them over to police (which the law requires him to do) but to use as "models" to make new ones. I am not saying this could not possibly be true but it is a little too convenient.
Another thing that bothers me about the call is that when he is going on about her fake breasts and how she dresses and makes the racist comment, he says IF that happens, then you DESERVE it. Later in the conversation where she is questioning how a man could hit a woman holding a baby and break her teeth when he says "you deserved it", it sounds VERY much like the previous topic, making me wonder how edited the tapes might actually be.
I'm not saying Mel is not responsible for this and that it is her fault. However, I think it will take proof that the tape is actual and unedited before I believe that she did not set him up, not because she was scared or that no one would believe her, but for her own personal reasons, whatever they are.
I also know that I have said things to loved ones during my life that were "threatening" in nature...."if you do that again I'm going to shoot you" "if you don't quit you might not live to see [insert next age of child]". Luckily all my conversations were not taped. That being said, he still has no right to talk to her like that, but likewise she could have hung up, unplugged the phone, called a taxi and went somewhere else till he was sober, etc. I sure wouldn't have stayed on the phone and egged my former husband on for that long!
I also think that he has dramatically changed in the past decade, but on the interview someone posted Diane Sawyer asks him if he was angry and he made some remark that he had been angry for a LONG time. I forget the actual time reference he used but it was long before even the DUI arrest.
