Mel Gibson could be the biological father of Jodie Foster’s two sons, reports suggested yesterday.

The remarkable claims were made in the aftermath of the actress’s speech at the Golden Globes.

Headlines from the glittering event were given over to her first public admission that she is gay, and a salute to her former long-term partner, film producer Cydney Bernard. But she also paid tribute to Gibson at the event, at which she won a lifetime achievement award.

Family tie? A report has suggested Mel Gibson, seen left with Jodie Foster, is the biological father of the star’s sons Kit and Charles, seen right with their mother at a Golden Globes party

Miss Foster, 50, and the Mad Max star sat at the same table at the ceremony, along with her sons Charles, 14, and Kit, 12.

She and Gibson have been close friends for years and she is one of the few people who stood by him in recent years during the fallout over his anti-Semitic rants.

Miss Foster did not abandon the actor even after his alleged abusive treatment of Oksana Grigorieva, his Russian ex-wife and mother of his most recent child, Lucia, three.

Happy family: Jodie with Charles, 14, and Kit, 12, at the Golden Globe awards last weekend

Emotional: Jodie name-checked Gibson during her speech, which reduced many people in the audience to tears

Go girl! The camera flashed to Mel during Jodie’s speech, showing the actor wolf-whistling and cheering

Love at first sight: Jodie and Mel met on the set of Maverick in 1994, and the actress said she knew from that moment that she would ‘love him for the rest of my life’

Firm friends: The pair teamed up again on movie The Beaver in 2011, and Jodie has frequently spoken of her love for the actor

Rumours: There has also been speculation that late director Randy Stone could be the father

In making the claims, the New York Post quoted an unnamed ‘amateur genealogist’ who said that Miss Foster’s kids ‘look like Gibson, but blonder’.

The newspaper offered no other explanation as to how it came to such a conclusion.

Charles and Kit do not know who their father is but Foster has reportedly promised to tell them on their 21st birthday.

They do, however, have another ‘mum’ in their life, Miss Bernard, who Miss Foster described in her acceptance speech as ‘one of the deepest loves of my life’, even though they split five years ago.

In the same speech she told Gibson: ‘You know, you save me, too.’

The pair became friends in 1994 when they starred in Maverick.

Foster cast Gibson, 57, in her 2011 film The Beaver at a time when the rest of Hollywood would barely speak to him.

She said of him: ‘He’s so incredibly loving and sensitive. I knew the minute I met him that I would love him the rest of my life.’

It has also been suggested that the sperm donor was Randy Stone, an openly gay casting director who died of heart disease in 2007.