Liam Neeson interview: Listen to audio of actor recounting wanting to kill a 'black bastard' for raping someone close to him

'I went up and down areas with a cosh, hoping I’d be approached by somebody,' actor says

Liam Neeson told The Independent how he once walked the streets with a cosh looking to kill a "black bastard" after a woman who was close to him was raped many years ago.

“She handled the situation of the rape in the most extraordinary way,” Neeson said. “But my immediate reaction was ... 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 [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 kill him.”

The 66-year-old actor shared the previously undisclosed story during a press junket for his new film, Cold Pursuit, admitting that he is now “ashamed” of his past “awful” behaviour.

In the interview that can be read in full here, he said: “It was horrible, horrible, when I think back, that I did that,” he said. “And I’ve never admitted that, and I’m saying it to a journalist. God forbid.”

He added: “It’s awful. But I did learn a lesson from it, when I eventually thought, ‘What the fuck are you doing’, you know? I understand that need for revenge, but it just leads to more revenge, to more killing and more killing.”