The red carpet for the premiere of the new Liam Neeson movie, “Cold Pursuit,” was canceled on Tuesday night amid the scandal over his self-confessed racist behavior — but the actor still showed up at the screening as well as the afterparty.
The embattled actor — who said during an interview published Monday in the UK’s Independent newspaper that he was ashamed to say that 40 years ago he had wanted to kill a “black bastard” to get “revenge” for his friend after she was raped by an unknown black man — stayed late at the Cinema Society party at Skylark in Midtown.
“He mingled,” said a spy at the party. “He was talking with guests.”
The source added, “People were definitely talking about his comments in their own scattered groups.”
The carpet was canceled hours before the premiere. A source told us, “Liam seems to feel that he’s said what he needed to say.”
He was slipped into the screening at AMC Lincoln Square through a back entrance.
He appeared on “Good Morning America” earlier Tuesday, denying that he’s a racist and saying, “I went out deliberately into black areas in the city . . . It shocked me and it hurt me.”