Source: Mel & Britney Have Been 'Meeting Regularly'

Originally posted Monday March 17, 2008 04:55 PM EDT

Mel Gibson and Britney Spears's dinner over the weekend wasn't their first meeting.

The pair and their families have met a number of times since Spears checked out from her second hospitalization last month, a source tells

"Mel and his wife Robin clearly saw a woman in crisis and wanted to extend themselves in any way possible," the source says.

"There's just a handful of people in the world who understand the kind of intense attention that Britney goes through, and how to raise a family with some semblance of privacy and how to keep one's family intact and out of the limelight," the source adds.

"There are no expectations, there is no agenda. It's simply an act of human kindness – one neighbor reaching out to the other."

Gibson and Spears used to be neighbors when the singer previously lived in Malibu.