Liam Neeson is at the centre of a racism storm after he admitted that he wanted to kill a black man who had raped his friend.
The actor said that he roamed the streets armed with a club hoping to get revenge, and in an interview with The Independent UK, the Antrim native revealed all.
"She handled the situation of the rape in the most extraordinary way."
"But my immediate reaction was, I asked, did she know who it was? No. What colour were they? She said it was a black person."
"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 black bastard would come out of a pub and have a go at me about something, you know?"
"So that I could kill him."
The 66 year old said it took him around a week to question what he was doing and admitted he that he was ashamed of his actions.
Many have criticised Neeson's comments, saying that they are racist, but one man to stand up for him is former footballer John Barnes.
John Barnes getting a lot of praise for his comments on Sky News. On calls to boycott Liam Neeson’s films and strip him of his OBE: “Let’s take down that statue of Wintson Churchill, who is a white supremacist and a mass murderer” pic.twitter.com/0SaKeCCUHo
— Darren Cleary (@RadioCleary) 5 February 2019
"I think Liam Neeson deserves a medal", the former Liverpool player said.
"I've listened to the whole interview transcript and he was talking about his film 'Cold Pursuit' and how, having been brought up in Northern Ireland, he understands how destructive revenge can be."
'You can't blame (him) for thinking what he feels - and this was a while ago - because society and the media had shown him this is what black people do."
"He has admitted that's how he viewed it. As much as people are jumping on the bandwagon is that he's come out and spoken the truth."
