Mel Gibson threatens to sue Chilean honey vendor

It seems that American actor Mel Gibson did an enormous favour for an unemployed Chilean educator after threatening her, through his lawyers, with a lawsuit for using his image on a honey pot.

Now Yohana Agurto, who sells honey to support her family in during the pandemic, has seen her sales boost and now dreams of exporting her product.

This Chilean single mother decided to start her small business after becoming unemployed in May, due to the coronavirus crisis.

Agurto was warned by a US law firm, which identified itself as representing the actor, of legal action against her if she did not stop advertising her honey with the actor's image.

The woman was forced to lower her product's advertising on Tuesday.

Agurto told The Associated Press on Wednesday that the problem "which kept me deep in anguish, today is transformed into dreams and plans."

After the initial scare by the lawyers' email, she asked for help on social media, arousing great solidarity including the offer of free help from design experts to create a new advertisement without Gibson's image, and gave her a great advertisement that would have been difficult to achieve alone.

Gibson's lawyers firm did not return requests for comment.

Under the slogan "Miel (Honey) Gibson, only for brave hearts", the original label on the small honey jars showed an image of Gibson as his William Wallace character from his film "Braveheart."

The woman's initial aim was to sell her honey door to door, but now after the increased attention, her dream is to sell it abroad.

About the use of the actor's image, the Chilean admitted that "we made a mistake because we didn't know about it, but there was never any bad intention."

Now, with help, she is designing a new label "that complies with image regulations both in Chile and internationally," she wrote on the tweet.

Chile's quarantine has been among the longest and strictest in the world, and the country is still reeling from one of the highest per-capita rates of infection.