The red carpet at the premiere of Liam Neeson's latest film was abruptly cancelled Tuesday afternoon, in the wake of comments the actor made about his racist reaction to a past incident.
Organizers of the New York premiere of Cold Pursuit made the announcement just a couple hours before the event was supposed to start. The film's screening Tuesday night will continue as planned.
The 66-year-old actor appeared Tuesday on ABC's Good Morning America, a day after the publication of an article in which he revealed that nearly 40 years ago he had sought to confront and commit violence against random black men after learning that someone close to him had been raped.
Neeson says he had asked his friend about the race of the attacker, along with other descriptive characteristics, before heading out into black neighbourhoods on multiple occasions "looking to be set upon so that I could unleash physical violence."
In an interview published Monday in the U.K. Independent, Neeson said that after being told the attacker was black, he "went up and down areas with a cosh [stick or truncheon]" hoping a black person "would come out of a pub and have a go at me about something, you know? So that I could kill him."
The Oscar-nominated actor says he's not a racist.
Liam Neeson admits violent thoughts about killing black person after friend was raped
However, he admitted feeling a "primal urge to lash out" before, eventually, becoming shocked by his behaviour.
After that, he says he sought help from a priest and close friends.
Can we stop trying to ruin peoples careers with all this stupid virtue signalling? Jesus Christ. He shouldn't have said a ####ing thing.
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That story is definitely missing the point. He was angry because his friend got raped, not because it was a black man that did it. He then walked around angry and did nothing before seeking help to calm down. Woop-de-do
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I feel like this didn't need its own thread. I saw the thread title and assumed he had passed away or something.
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I feel like this didn't need its own thread. I saw the thread title and assumed he had passed away or something.
Yeah. I mean I agree that the reaction to his comments are borderline idiotic in terms of trying to paint him as some “once a racist always a racist” vibe, but I think drawing attention to the attention seeking is probably hook line and sinker.
Congrats white out, you fought the exposure of a dumb POV by creating a thread about it in which, best scenario, everyone goes “I agree” and worst case scenario you just end up trolling people into sharing that same POV here for arguments sake.
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Yeah. I mean I agree that the reaction to his comments are borderline idiotic in terms of trying to paint him as some “once a racist always a racist” vibe, but I think drawing attention to the attention seeking is probably hook line and sinker.
Congrats white out, you fought the exposure of a dumb POV by creating a thread about it in which, best scenario, everyone goes “I agree” and worst case scenario you just end up trolling people into sharing that same POV here for arguments sake.
Maybe here people will agree. But this is very much taking on a life of its own. He's already had one event cancelled and people are going berserk on twitter
The quote in that article seemed a little sanitized.
Quote:
"I went up and down areas with a cosh, hoping I’d be approached by somebody—I’m ashamed to say that—and I did it for maybe a week, hoping some [Neeson gestures air quotes with his fingers] ‘black bastard’ would come out of a pub and have a go at me about something, you know? So that I could,” another pause, “kill him.”
I don't think he needs to have his career ruined, but it came off as at least a little nutty and definitely race tinged.
The quote in that article seemed a little sanitized.
I don't think he needs to have his career ruined, but it came off as at least a little nutty and definitely race tinged.
I listened to it on CBC radio yesterday, and it was definitely chilling. Unfortunately I knew right away there would be fall out because he used the word “black” even though it wasn’t really the story.
“I asked my friend what happened and she told me she had been raped. I asked what he looked like. She said he was a black man”. So that’s who he went looking for. It’s unfortunate that the whole point of him sharing this troubling story is being overshadowed by faux racism.
Seems like the whole point of the story is that behaviour can and should change.
He told the story now, for no real good reason. Why even bring the race element into it? It seems like a completely unforced error to say he looked for weeks for a black bastard to kill. He said he learned from his thirst for revenge was wrong, but didn't say he learned from blaming a whole race for one guy's actions.
He told the story now, for no real good reason. Why even bring the race element into it? It seems like a completely unforced error to say he looked for weeks for a black bastard to kill. He said he learned from his thirst for revenge was wrong, but didn't say he learned from blaming a whole race for one guy's actions.
I'm not sure of the context surrounding the timing of sharing this story now, but you're completely right. He should have ignored that inconvenient little "fact" (who even bothers with those anymore? Pfft).
He should have simply been looking for a "man"... No, wait, that's sexist.
Just any person would...oh, yeah, that's species-ist.
You know things have gone to far when something that's factually accurate can't be used as a description lest it offend... someone...? ####, I can't keep track.
I'm not sure of the context surrounding the timing of sharing this story now, but you're completely right. He should have ignored that inconvenient little "fact" (who even bothers with those anymore? Pfft).
He should have simply been looking for a "man"... No, wait, that's sexist.
Just any person would...oh, yeah, that's species-ist.
You know things have gone to far when something that's factually accurate can't be used as a description lest it offend... someone...? ####, I can't keep track.
He said he was looking to kill any black person he would come at him because a black guy raped his friend. He wasn't saying he was looking for the black man that raped her, he wanted to take his revenge and kill any black person.
He said he was looking to kill any black person he would come at him because a black guy raped his friend. He wasn't saying he was looking for the black man that raped her, he wanted to take his revenge and kill any black person.
The first (and only) article I read on this earlier today said he was looking for "the" (black) man that raped his friend, not "a" (black) man...
The interview is here. It's very clear he was looking for any black person to take his revenge on.
It just honestly sounded to me like an off the cuff, honest account of a story that happened to him. If it had happened differently, there would have had a single word changed. I have no stake in Neeson’s career or anything, so that’s all I’ll say on it.
Liam Neeson Interview
