A former friend and colleague of Mel Gibson has written a book detailing his sordid relationship with the actor-producer. The author, Joe Esztherhas, says he wrote "Heaven and Mel" because he wanted to let Gibson know that he should seek help for his issues with anger management.

He also says he wanted to protect Gibson's ex-girlfriend, Oksana Grigorieva, with whom he has a 3-year-old daughter.

"One of the reasons I wrote it, one of the reasons I included those parts (on Oksana Grigorieva), is that I thought that by writing it would extend a kind of protective corridor around her," Eszterhas said. "I think that's necessary, because I truly feel there is a potential for great tragedy." 

Esztherhas, a screenwriter whose work include "Basic Instinct" and "Showgirls," was working on a movie about the Jewish hero Juddah Maccabe with Mel Gibson when one evening while discussing their project, Gibson, according to Esztherhas went off on an anti-Semitic diatribe, which included death threats against Grigorieva. Later Esztherhas released an audio recording of a message Gibson sent him to the media. In the message, Gibson is audibly upset and uses many expletives to express his anger.

Esztherhas is not the first to witness Gibson's volatile temper. In 2010, he alegedly used an epithet to describe one of his Hispanic employees and threatened to call immigration authorities on her. In 1991, The Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation, accused Gibson of making derogatory comments about homosexuals. Most famously, in 2006, after being arrested for drunk driving, Gibson went off on the police officer making anti-Semitic remarks.

"Heaven and Mel" will be published by Amazon as a Kindle book. Esztherhas told CNN that "I am proud of what I have done and let the chips fall where they may."