Neeson has said he is ‘ashamed’ at having wanted to take racially motivated revenge
Piers Morgan has compared Liam Neeson to the Ku Klux Klan after he revealed that he previously attempted to exact revenge on a “black bastard” after somebody close to him was raped.
The 66-year-old actor said that he “went up and down areas with a cosh” hoping to kill a “black bastard”, after being told that unnamed loved one had been sexually assaulted by a person of colour, with Nesson saying he regretted the incident.
The comments were made during an interview with The Independent, to promote Neeson’s new film Cold Pursuit, which sees his character take violent revenge against drug dealers who he believes killed his son.
Journalist Jeremy Helligar believes while Liam Neeson's actions were racist, it doesn't make him a racist. He says Neeson simply 'lacked awareness'. pic.twitter.com/BK9bMPmW0p
— Good Morning Britain (@GMB) February 5, 2019
Speaking about the interview on Good Morning Britain, Piers Morgan described the incident as “Ku Klux Klan stuff” that was “staggeringly racist.”
“There’s no self-awareness,” he said. “It’s the indiscriminate nature of this revenge he talks about. He’s talking about any black person who he can find an excuse to kill. It’s like Ku Klux Klan stuff.”
Continuing about the impact what he had said could have on the actor’s career, he said: “I would be very surprised if Liam Neeson’s career is not now in very serious trouble,” he said. “I don’t know how he’ll talk his way out of this. I think he’s got a real problem now.
“You don’t want it to be [career ending] for someone of his stature, but when you actually hear him say this stuff I think there will be fully justified outrage.”
Morgan also spoke to the journalist who interviewed Neeson, Clemence Michallon, who said she didn’t realise the severity of his comments when they were made. She said: “You do not go into a movie press junket expecting to hear that story. What I felt immediately was a strong sense of responsibility and duty to tell the story sensitively.”
Neeson said during the interview that he felt ashamed about what he had done. He said: “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 added: “I come from a society – I grew up in Northern Ireland in the Troubles – and, you know, I knew a couple of guys that died on hunger strike, and I had acquaintances who were very caught up in the Troubles, and I understand that need for revenge, but it just leads to more revenge, to more killing and more killing, and Northern Ireland’s proof of that.
“All this stuff that’s happening in the world, the violence, is proof of that, you know. But that primal need, I understand.”
