Mel Gibson feels “terrible” about suicide
By Alexandra Heilbron on March 22, 2008 | 8 Comments
A rep for Mel Gibson has told TMZ.com that Mel feels “terrible” about the suicide that occurred at his Agoura Hills property last Wednesday, even though he’d never met the man. The victim is Michael John Van Dyke, a 48-year-old construction worker who went through a messy divorce last year and was having financial troubles. Van Dyke has worked on a number of movies as a set construction foreman, including The Matrix Reloaded, Dr. Dolittle 2 and Star Trek: Nemesis.
He’s also still probably getting over the death of Heath Ledger, who played his son in The Patriot.
was he supposed to feel good?!
Of course he feels terrible, anyone would. Why do they even have to ask? I hate it when the reporters say “how do you feel?”, I mean, how the f*ck do you THINK he feels? If you are so stupid you have to ask such a question, you are too stupid to live!
I agree totally with tributegirl!
Sure, it stinks that somebody killed themself in Mel’s family home, but consider the state of mind of the victim “Michael John Van Dyke, a 48-year-old construction worker who went through a messy divorce last year and was having financial troubles”.
MIchael’s CV reads like a who’s who of California and yet here is a guy that is to become another buried statistic in the effects of divorce. I don’t know his story, what I do know is that more and more men are offing themselves to escape the despair of an unjust family law process. Anyone who has been through a divorce or is going thru one knows what those financial troubles look like, and for many these troubles seem never to end and are without cap. 48 years old puts him in the years where most of us would begin to coast, most of the bills paid, probably working down his mortgage etc.. I’ll bet now he is without his home, he would be handing half of his pretax income over, he won’t see his kids much because half custody wouldn’t warrant his ex’s financial winfall. I don’t know what ended this guys marraige, all I know is that too many men find this the only way out from a ridiculously failed system. Bummer it was Mel’s place, bummer that the spotlight is on Mel and not what drove a seemingly successful contractor to this end.
You are right, Eric….you don’t know. None of us do. Maybe his ex made more $ than he did.???? I get the impression that you think women don’t do anything except use their children to get money from their ex husbands! Poor men, the women take them for everything they have leaving them with nothing, and nothing to live for….give it up!! My ex doesn’t pay sh*t!! Never has, never will. Never lifted a finger to help my two kids…dead beat loser!!
Eric, who do you think suffers most, financially, after a divorce? Almost every single time it is the woman and children! I know some men have it hard after divorce, some women do use their kids as pawns, but the majority of the time the man does NOT pay child support (or if he does, it doesn’t even begin to pay for the childs needs), does NOT keep promises to their children (leaving the mother to deal with the tears later), they often dont take ANY responsibility at all. Some do, I’ll admit that, and the ones that do I have total respect for, but most are deadbeat dads and the women are usually living in poverty and sacrificing their own needs to provide the very basic necessities for the children.
None of us know what this guy was going through in his life, so none of us should assume the wife is at fault. There are many places to turn to for help, and I know sometimes people feel so desperate and won’t get the help they need, and end up taking their own lives. But the bottom line is, he took his own life, no matter what was going on, he made this decision himself.
Absolutely horrible. I wonder if Mel ever sells that house, potential buyers would care that someone died in there.