I haven’t seen a mention of this on CC. Liam Neeson admitted that a long time ago after a close friend was raped by a black man that he went out looking for a black man to assault as revenge. It was a very bizarre and disturbing revelation that will likely have effects on his career. I haven’t heard any mention of why he made this confession. Did he reveal this out of guilt? Had he confided this in the past to close friends and was fearful that one of them would reveal it to the media/ Or is a former friend trying to blackmail him and he decided to come clean himself?
I think he made the statement as part of an interview about a movie he has coming out this week, whose plot concerns revenge. He was recounting a time in his life when he was so enraged about an assault on a friend that he was ready to do something horrendous in response. Judging from the reaction, he was way too candid in the interview but he totally outed himself, IMO. I can’t see how anyone else could have revealed that he had done this given that nothing ever came of it.
He didn’t actually assault anyone, did he?
The New York premiere of the movie has been cancelled https://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-47138980
@websensation No he didn’t.
I found out today too that Mark Wahlberg assaulted people for racist reasons when he was younger and one man was left blind in one eye. I swear, some days you just want to crawl back into bed! He had attacked two Vietnamese-American men.
IDK what Liam Neeson was thinking to spill those beans.
Terry Crews, explained it best “I believe that every person on earth is capable of the greatest good, or unspeakable evil. Liam is just describing his fork in the road.”
The Mark Walburg stuff has been known for a long time. He served time in jail for it.
I don’t think we can expect people to be perfect. Liam Neeson was being honest about his feelings.
@twoinanddone " Liam Neeson was being honest about his feelings." Exactly! How many of us have had thoughts, said words etc., that we wish we could take back. We were all young and stupid at one time…
I got no problem with Liam Neeson, as long as he didn’t follow up on his act. OTOH I don’t watch anything with Walburg appearing. But I think it’s stupid if he disclosed that intentionally. What conversation does he want to start exactly? There are certain things you keep among your close friends and don’t say in public.
Looks like just another example of reactive or revenge bigotry against a racial/ethnic/religious group that a wrongdoer (or perceived wrongdoer) happens to be a member of.
Such reactive or revenge bigotry is common. Consider that reactions to terrorist attacks often result in increased bigotry against the terrorists’ racial/ethnic/religious group (if it is not the majority or dominant group in the target place), often resulting in private or government action that is unfriendly to such racial/ethnic/religious group. And that may be exactly what the terrorists want, so that they can claim that their targets are evil bigots against their racial/ethnic/religious group, whom the terrorists want to recruit.
Addendum to #10: terrorism itself is often motivated by reactive or revenge bigotry.
Good luck getting rid of the in-group/out-group dichotomy. It’s been in us for millions of years.
Was this supposed to be when he lived in NI?
I was very disappointed when I learned Mark Wahlberg requested to expunge his criminal record. The fact that he actually committed a horrible racially motivated crime was bad enough, now he is a famous celebrity, he thought he could erase the past? (I later learned that the reason for the request was to become a LAPD reservist)
At least Liam Neeson didn’t act on it. (Well, he is 66 and Mark Wahlberg was 16.)
In fairness, don’t most non celebrities try to get their records expunged after they have paid their dues to society and exhibited lawful behavior?
Really? I didn’t know that!!
The reason seems like a bad idea for both Wahlberg and the LAPD. With respect to non-white citizens, police departments generally tend to have a difficult time overcoming reputations of racism and excessive use of force even if they are perfectly clean, so hiring someone with Wahlberg’s history would likely be harmful to a police department that wants to improve relations with law abiding citizens in the community that it protects and serves.
Expungement laws do vary by state, and even records which are eligible for expungement often are not, since that can require specific action to do so. There do not seem to be any obvious statistics on what percentage of records eligible for expungement are actually expunged.
@HiToWaMom I think Liam was in his early to mid-twenties at the time he had those thoughts of violence.