Trevor Noah says Liam Neeson deserves credit for 'powerful admission' on racism

'I hope he and people who hear the story understand the gravity of what he's saying'

Trevor Noah has shared his thoughts on the controversy surrounding Liam Neeson‘s recent comments.

The actor faced a massive backlash after telling The Independent that he once roamed the streets with a cosh, wanting to kill a “black bastard” after someone close to him was raped years ago.

When the subject came up as part of The Daily Show‘s Q&A session with audience members, Noah replied: “I think it’s really difficult, because in many ways it feels like an onslaught. I can understand, for any black person out there to be like, this s*** never seems to end. You think you get past the age of lynching and then there’s still blackface in 2019.”

:: Read the original, exclusive interview that started a global conversation

“I do think it was a powerful admission, though,” he added. “I hope he and people who hear the story understand the gravity of what he’s saying and that is: ‘If you are not careful, you can have inside of you a hatred that is encouraged or grown by the society that you live in. And you don’t even realise how disgusting that idea is.’”

Noah also suggested that the backlash was more severe because Neeson offered the story unprompted, during the promotional tour for a new film. He posited that, if he had made the confession during an interview with Oprah Winfrey, it would have been seen “as a person admitting to a time in their life when they allowed their hatred and anger to fester into a racism that they were ashamed of.”

“And I think also, I’m going to honest, that a lot of people take this story a little more seriously because it’s Liam Neeson,” he added. “Because people see him as the Taken guy.” If Tom Hanks said the same thing, Noah joked, “we’d all be like, ‘Really, Tom Hanks?’”