Liam Neeson

[DeeLicious]

has he killed his own career?

[retrocop]

//As he said, had the attacker been of a different ethnicity, he wouldn’t have been looking for a black man.//

Does that mean if it was a white rapist he would have had to cosh himself ? :-)

[Calicogirl]

It doesn't really matter if anything happened or not or if he actually did it or just got hammered and thought about doing it. He said what he said in an interview and that was always bound to have repercussions for him.
I'm not even judging him to be honest. The inside of all of our heads is a strange and nasty place on occasion, we all surprise ourselves by our thoughts sometimes and are uncomfortable with them or ashamed of ourselves, but very few of us are remiss enough to tell a journalist about it, that's his real crime and I can't see why ever he would have done it.

[ummmm]

Have you seen the interview?

I haven't so don't know what lead up to him admitting that.

[naomi24]

//very few of us are remiss enough to tell a journalist about it, that's his real crime and I can't see why ever he would have done it.//

He was giving that episode in his life as an example of, as he put it, "something primal" kicking in when a someone close to you is the victim of violence. I don't know why that’s so difficult for anyone to understand.

[murraymints]

irrespective of what anybody thinks , he said what he said, using inflammatory language and he is now having to deal with the adverse reactions..even if he is recounting events from 40 years ago.... there is no hiding place in Tinsel Town...very remiss and somewhat foolishly naive not to consider the consequences of such a statement....

[sanmac]

Some of these responses are way too melodramatically emotive.

[Rockrose]

you don't see anything wrong with what he contemplated doing then Naomi?

[jim360]

I don't think there can be any meaningful dispute that looking for a "black b******" in the hopes of killing him, ie, basing his decision and motivation on skin colour, is anything other than massively racist. I *still* agree that it shouldn't be held against him, given the shame he expressed, but to claim that it's not racist is somewhat of a stretch, to say the least.

Also, I should just add that there is a difference between an incident being racist and the person being racist. Neeson's actions and thoughts at the time were highly irrational, and motivated by a sense of revenge and totally misplaced justice. That doesn't make him a racist in day-to-day life, but what he did -- or what he thought about doing, what he *hoped* to do -- there can be no more racist thought than wishing to kill a black man, any black man, because someone you know was raped.

[Calicogirl]

I understand perfectly and as I said I'm not even judging him on it considering I hoped and prayed once that someone would actually drop dead (not my finest hour), none of us are in a position to judge, but he will have known what the media backlash would be and he's potentially lost two films over it, so daft thing to do, there's a baying mob of hacks lurking who just wait for things like this, and make news where there is little.

[ummmm]

My dad was attacked by a black man. Seriously injured but the colour of his skin didn't enter my mind.

[naomi24]

Rockrose, //you don't see anything wrong with what he contemplated doing then Naomi?//

I’ve neither said nor implied anything of the sort. Of course I see something wrong with what he was contemplating – and so does he - which is what he’s saying.

[douglas9401]

You can count yourself a nobler soul than mr Neeson then, ummmm.

Probably.

[ummmm]

I don't know what 'nobler' means?

I'm getting my revenge, it's got jack to do with the colour of his skin though.

[douglas9401]

Adjective

nobler

comparative form of noble: more noble

[ToraToraTora]

jim: "there can be no more racist thought than wishing to kill a black man, any black man, because someone you know was raped. " - now if you append "by a black man" to that sentence you'll see that the whole black thing is incidental based only on the colour of the rapist not an inherent bias against. He said as much later.