PEOPLE

WHOOPI Goldberg has insisted Liam Neeson isn’t racist in the light of his recent controversial interview.

The 63-year-old actress has defended her friend after he came under fire for confessing to trying to provoke a fight with a black person after a friend was raped. While she has “been around a lot of real bigots”, she doesn’t count the Taken star as one.

“People walk around sometimes with rage, that’s what happens. Is he a bigot? No,” Goldberg said. “You can’t be surprised that somebody whose loved one is attacked is angry.

“(But) he realised that it was too dark for him, he went and got himself help.”

Neeson has since explained that he was expressing the “primal urge” to lash out that he had felt. | Bang