Liam Neeson has insisted he is not racist following an interview in The Independent in which he spoke of roaming the streets with a cosh, wanting to kill a “black bastard” after someone close to him was raped years ago.
The 66 year-old actor said race had not played a part in his actions, claiming he would have reacted in the same way if his friend’s attacker had been “a Scot or a Brit or a Lithuanian”.
He also said his behaviour was a result of wanting to show “honour” after someone close to him had been assaulted.
The comments came after The Independent revealed that Neeson had walked the streets after learning of his friend’s rape, hoping a black man would start a fight with him so he could kill him.
Speaking to ABC’s Good Morning America programme, he said: “I’m not racist.”
But he repeated that he had asked his friend the race of her attacker. “She said he was a black man, I thought ‘OK’,” he said.
“Then after that I went out deliberately into black areas of the city looking to be set upon so I could unleash physical violence and I did it maybe four or five times until I caught myself on and it really shocked me, this primal urge I had.”
The actor said to interviewer Robin Roberts that he visited a priest to discuss the incident and “went power-walking two hours every day” to “get rid” of his feelings.
Source: Independent
