Liam Neeson’s life has been steeped in violence and tragedy — including turning to booze after wife’s death and hitting a student while a teacher.

 

Liam Neeson shared a disturbing and potentially racist story while promoting his current film. The actor told of his reaction on hearing that a relative had been raped.

Actor Liam Neeson has made a blockbuster career out of playing angry characters hellbent on revenge.

But the Taken star’s rape retaliation fantasy is evidence he wrestles with crippling rage off-screen too.

The actor, 66, has been struggling with his temper ever since his childhood during Northern Ireland’s Troubles, an era he admits he “never stops thinking about”, The Sun reports.

Over the years he has been afflicted with booze and painkiller dependency plus horrendous grief.

He believes his Catholic upbringing in mainly Protestant Ballymena — the only son of school caretaker Barney and dinner lady Kitty — was a trigger for his demons.

From age nine he was venting his fury boxing — but had still not learned to manage it by adulthood.

Neeson has been struggling with his temper ever since his childhood during Northern Ireland’s Troubles. Picture: AFP
Working as a teacher, before he chose acting, he beat up a student who threatened him with a knife.

Neeson recalled: “I had to punch him and then I was reprimanded for hitting the kid.”

He says violence is just a part of who he is — a reflection of the toxic environment where Catholics and Protestants killed each other throughout many years of terrorism.

Neeson, who also has sisters Rosaleen, Bernadette and Elizabeth, said: “I’ve known guys and girls who have been perpetrators of violence and victims.

“Protestants and Catholics. It’s part of my DNA.”

Neeson, who played IRA hero Michael Collins in the 1996 film of the same name, grew up with pals who became republican hunger strikers. He recalled: “I had acquaintances who were very caught up in the Troubles, and I understand that need for revenge. But it leads to more revenge, to more killing, and Northern Ireland’s proof of that.”

His upbringing was mentioned again this week when trying to justify his controversial comments about wanting to kill a black man.

He said: “One Catholic would be killed, the next day a Protestant would be killed. One Catholic pub would be bombed, a Protestant pub would be bombed.”

He also denied being racist. But in 2014, promoting Non-Stop where he played an ex-cop hunting a killer on a flight, he admitted he has been guilty of “racial profiling”.

Liam Neeson: “I’m a child of Northern Ireland.” Picture: Getty
He explained: “It’s a horrible thing to admit to, but we all do it.

“I know I do it. And I’m used to it because I’m a child of Northern Ireland. And from 1970 onwards, any flights we made over to England, I’d be travelling on my own, hair down to here, single Irish guy, I was always pulled over.”

The ex-boxer is just as punchy when it comes to the #MeToo ­sexual harassment movement, which he labelled a “witch-hunt”.

In January last year he became one of the few Hollywood stars to speak out against it, defending pal Dustin Hoffman, 81, after he became embroiled in the scandal.

Neeson said: “When you’re doing a play and you’re with your family, other actors and technicians, you do silly things … you do silly things and it becomes superstitious.

“If you don’t do it every night you think it’s going to jinx the show. I think Dustin Hoffman …  I’m not saying I’ve done similar things like what he did. Apparently he touched a girl’s breast and stuff, but it’s childhood stuff.”

Neeson’s own acting career began in Belfast in 1976. As he later rose up the Hollywood ranks, he had a string of A-list lovers including Helen Mirren, Julia Roberts, Cher and Sinead O’Connor.

With late wife Natasha Richardson in 2008. Picture: AFP
Another, Brooke Shields, revealed he proposed in 1992 after three months — but never called her again.

She recalled: “I said, ‘No, no, no, because knowing you, you’ll probably fall in love with your next leading lady and marry her’.”

She was right. Liam met Natasha Richardson when they starred in the play Anna Christie and they wed in 1994. They went on to have two sons — Micheál, now 23, and Daniel, 22 — during their 15-year marriage. But Neeson’s darker side again emerged following her tragic death in 2009 aged just 45. He agonised over whether to turn off her life support machine after she hit her head in a freak skiing accident.

He decided to keep her alive for a short period to allow family and friends to say goodbye, saying: “She and I had made a pact, if any of us got into a vegetative state that we’d pull the plug.” The way he then threw himself back into his work sparked fears he was having a breakdown.

He later admitted he had been hitting the Guinness and red wine. In March 2014, Neeson revealed he had ditched booze, saying: “I was drinking too much. It started since my wife died.”

He later told how he had been to “quite a few AA meetings”, but insisted he was researching a role.

Richardson died aged 45 in a freak skiing accident. Picture: AP
His actor son Micheál, who uses his mum’s maiden name, admitted in 2015 that he turned to drugs in a “delayed reaction” to her death. It will have heaped pain on Neeson — not least because it would bring back memories of his own drug addiction. After a motorcycle crash in 2000, Neeson admitted he became hooked on morphine.

He revealed: “When they gave me morphine, ugh, I thought, ‘This is how I want to go, with a big f***in’ jar of this stuff’.”

Neeson had reportedly been wandering naked through a California hotel in 2017. But these days he is rarely seen without a tea flask even in restaurants, where he asks staff to fill it with water. Instead of smoking, he chews on toothpicks.

His struggles appear not to have affected his box office appeal.

Buoyed by the success of his lead role as retired CIA agent Bryan Mills in Taken, he has landed parts in The Lego Movie and the new Men in Black: International.

But on top of his rape revenge revelation, further controversy could come courtesy of his involvement in a forthcoming film glamorising the life of an IRA killer.

A Mad And Wonderful Thing is based on a novel of the same name. Neeson said: “I think sufficient time has passed since the Good Friday Agreement to, at last, have a novel that goes inside the head of one of the Troubles’ protagonists. To hear the pros and cons of the conflict told in an original and exciting way.”

If any man knows conflict, it’s Neeson.