In February 2019, Neeson gained public and media controversy after a press junket interview he had conducted with The Independent, while promoting his film Cold Pursuit, about a father seeking revenge for his son's murder. Neeson explained his character's "primal" anger by recounting an experience he had 40 years ago. A woman close to him had been raped by a stranger. After learning the attacker was black, Neeson said that for about a week, he "went up and down areas with a cosh ... hoping some 'black bastard' would come out of a pub and have a go" so that Neeson "could kill him". In the interview, Neeson also said he was ashamed to recount the experience and that it was "horrible" that he did what he did. "It's awful ... but I did learn a lesson from it, when I eventually thought, 'What the fuck are you doing?'" In an appearance on Good Morning America, Neeson elaborated on his experience while denying being a racist, saying the incident occurred nearly 40 years ago, that he asked for physical attributes of the rapist other than race, that he would have done the same if the rapist was "a Scot or a Brit or a Lithuanian", that he had purposely gone into "black areas of the city", and that he "did seek help" and counseling from a priest, as well as friends after coming to his senses. Neeson said that the lesson of his experience was "to open up, to talk about these things", including toxic masculinity, and underlying "racism and bigotry" in both the United States and Northern Ireland. The controversy Neeson's comments caused led to the cancellation of the red carpet event for the premiere of Cold Pursuit. Trevor Noah defended Neeson, calling it a "powerful admission", elaborating saying, "I want to live in a world where a person who said something like that is ashamed of it and they are telling it to you and you aren't catching them out". Michelle Rodriguez, Whoopi Goldberg, and Ralph Fiennes have also defended Neeson.