Mel Gibson has admitted he slapped his ex-girlfriend but insists he only did so because she was endangering their infant daughter.

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TMZ said Gibson made the admission in a sworn declaration he gave in his custody battle with Oksana Grigorieva, who has accused him of domestic violence.

Although Grigorieva claims Gibson punched her in the temple and in the mouth, knocking out two of her teeth, during a heated argument last January, Gibson said he slapped Grigorieva after she had grabbed their baby daughter out of her bassinet, began screaming over her at Gibson, then ran off into their dark backyard with the child. When she returned to the house, she swung the baby around in her arms to keep her out of Gibson's reach, TMZ quoted Gibson as saying in legal papers.

"I slapped Oksana one time with an open hand in an attempt to bring her back to reality. I did not slap her hard, I was just trying to shock her so that she would stop screaming ... shaking Lucia back and forth," the Web site reported Gibson wrote about the incident.