For many years now, Liam Neeson has been focused on payback in, like, every movie in which he’s starred. On Tuesday morning, however, the actor was forced to walk back some very unusual and controversial comments he recently made about race relations. Specifically, how Neeson once roamed the street hoping to murder some random black person . Speaking to The Independent earlier in the week, Neeson thought back to a long time ago when a close friend of his got raped. Unprompted, and to the shock of everyone who read this story, the veteran star explained how he was so intent on revenge for the incident that he set out to commit violence against an African-American. Why? Because his friend said it was an African-American who committed the awful act against her. “God forbid you’ve ever had a member of your family hurt under criminal conditions,” Neeson told the aforementioned publication, delving into the details: “She handled the situation of the rape in the most extraordinary way. But my immediate reaction was … I asked, did she know who it was? No. What color were they? “She said it was a black person.” From there? “I went up and down areas with a cosh [bludgeon], hoping I’d be approached by somebody – I’m ashamed to say that … hoping some ‘black bastard’ would come out of a pub and have a go at me about something, you know? “So that I could … kill him,” Neeson added. Yikes, right? Neeson freely admitted that he was out looking to kill ANY “black bastard,” condemning an entire race, simply because one black person raped his friend. Speaking to Robin Roberts on Good Morning America, the actor acknowledged how awful this sounds. But he insisted that incident stemmed from immaturity and anger, not any ingrained racism. “I’m not a racist,” Neeson told Roberts. He explained that the assault in question happened “nearly 40 years ago” and alleged that he “definitely” would have searched for a white man in the same way if his friend said her attacker had fit that description. “If she’d have said an Irish, or a Scott, or a Brit, or a Lithuanian I know [it] would’ve had the same effect,” he said. Neeson went on to say he learned from his response, saying to Roberts: “I was trying to show honor, to stand up for my dear friend in this terrible medieval fashion.” “I am a fairly intelligent guy. That’s why it kind of shocked me when I came down to earth after having these terrible feelings.” “Luckily no violence occurred.” “I did want to lash out because my friend was brutally raped and I was defending her honor. It was a learning curve.” He added that he sought help from a priest shortly after responding in this wildly inappropriate fashion. Looking back, the actor said how wrong he was and that he’s thankful no one got hurt. “It was horrible, horrible, when I think back, that I did that. And I’ve never admitted that, and I’m saying it to a journalist. God forbid,” he said before concluding: “It’s awful. But I did learn a lesson from it, when I eventually thought, ‘What the f-ck are you doing?'”
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Liam Neeson Insists He Isn’t Racist After Saying He Wanted to Kill Random Black Man
