Hollywood star denies ‘shoving and spitting on’ female photographer

Mel Gibson's publicist has strongly denied claims he physically assaulted a female photographer outside a cinema in Sydney last night.

Speaking to Syndey's Daily Telegraph this morning, photographer Kristi Miller alleged the US actor turned on her after she took a photo of him leaving the Palace Verona cinema with his new girlfriend Rosalind Ross.

"I took a photo of Mel and his girlfriend and when I turned around he shoved my back really hard," Ms. Miller said.

"It shocked me because I wasn’t expecting it. I don’t know if it was his hands or elbow… I thought he was going to punch me in the face."

Describing the alleged attack, Ms Miller, said the actor 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. He swore and called me a c**t. It was non-stop, he didn’t even breathe."

The story was widely reported in Australian media this morning, but Mel's publicist has denied there was any physical contact between the Braveheart actor and Ms. Miller.

"Basically Mr Gibson and his friend [Ms. Ross] were being harrassed by this photographer and he asked her repeatedly to stop, which she did not,” he told Guardian Australia. “There was never any physical contact whatsoever and the story being told by her is a complete fabrication of the truth.”

Police in the Surry Hills area of Sydney told media they were investigating reports that a male "became involved in an altercation with a photographer outside a cinema on Oxford Street" yesterday evening.

Mel and Rosalind had been at the Palace Verona to watch David Oelhoffen’s 2014 film Far From Men. The actor is living Down Under as work commences on his fifth directorial project, Hacksaw Ridge, starring Andrew Garfield as Desmond Doss, a conscientious objector during WW2.

This incident is not the first time Mel has been accused of physical assault. Back in 2011 he reached an out-of-court settlement with former girlfriend Oksana Grigorieva, who is also the mother of his five-year-old daugher Lucia.

Ms. Grigorieva claimed the actor has physically and verbally abused her during their relationship. She was awarded $750,000 (€647,000) in the settlement, along with a house in California to live in with Lucia until the young girl turns 18, at which point the house must be sold and the proceeds placed in a trust fund.