Liam Neeson In Race Row After He Expressed Anguish Over A Closed One's Rape

Liam Neeson says he walked the streets with a weapon, hoping to kill someone as revenge when someone close to him was raped by a black man. The actor, who was promoting his new film Cold Pursuit, told to the media that "there's something primal" once you become angry.

The media has contacted Liam Neeson's representatives for comment. In the interview, he said "God forbid you have ever had a member of your family hurt under criminal conditions. I am going to tell you a story. This is often true." Liam Neeson said the alleged rape place a long time ago and he found out about it when he came back from a trip abroad. The actor went on to use racially offensive language regarding the attacker.

He said that she handled the matters of the rape within the most extraordinary means. "But my immediate reaction was... I asked, did she recognize who it was? No. What colour were they? She aforementioned it was a black person.

"I went up and down areas with a cosh, hoping I would be approached by someone - I am ashamed to mention that - and that I did it for perhaps every week, hoping some 'black bastard' would embark of a pothouse and have a go at me regarding something, you know? In order that I might kill him."

Liam Neeson, whose new film sees him star as a snowplough driver seeking revenge against drug dealers he thinks killed his son, has been subject to loads of criticism on social media over the interview for what has been seen as racially charged comments.

Javon Johnson aforementioned on Twitter that the comments were "violently discarding black folks" however were additionally "haunted by patriarchy" because "he turned his friend's sexual assault into a platform for his own need to prove his male dominance."

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Julia Craven added "So Liam Neeson's response to a beloved being raped was to one. Ask the race of the aggressor, that tells us his racism was planted before the assault. 2. Roam through (presumably) black neighbourhoods in hopes of provoking a black person so that he could murder them."

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Neeson referred back to his comments later within the interview, adding: "It was ugly, horrible, after I remember the things, that I did that. And I have never admitted that, and I am saying it to a journalist. God forbid.

"It's awful. But I did learn a lesson from it." The 66-year-old, who is best known for Schindler's List and the thriller series Taken, also described growing up in County Antrim, Northern Ireland, during the Troubles.

"I knew some of the fellows that died on fasting, and that I had acquaintances who were terribly wedged within the Troubles, and that I perceive that require for revenge, however it simply ends up in a lot of revenge, to a lot of killing and a lot of 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," he added.

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