When the actor Liam Neeson told The Independent on a press junket for the promotion of his new revenge flick Cold Pursuit that, after a friend of his had been raped by a black man, he had walked the streets with a cosh hoping to encounter some “black bastard” so that he could kill him, social media went – unsurprisingly – into meltdown.
Neeson, 66, said that his “primal” urge to enact revenge on *any* black man had been informed by his childhood in Northern Ireland during the Troubles. “We all pretend we’re all politically correct,” he added.
He has cancelled an appearance on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert on Friday night as the controversy continues.
On Tuesday, the ex-England footballer and anti-racism campaigner John Barnes defended Neeson: “What he’s done is he’s come out and he’s told the truth.”
Listen into the recording here and make up your own mind.
What Neeson planned to do was evil – no better than the neo-Nazi Robert Bowers who felt that he had to make the congregation of The Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh pay for being Jewish.
