Whoopi Goldberg is the latest celebrity to weigh in on the racism row sparked by Liam Neeson after comments he made in an interview.
The Sister Act star defended her fellow actor on The View, saying she has 'been around a lot of real bigots' and doesn't think Neeson is one.
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She said: "People walk around sometimes with rage, that's what happens. Is he a bigot? No. I've known him a pretty long time, I think I would have recognised, I've been around a lot of real bigots. I can say this man is not one."
The 63-year-old actress went on to say that it's not a 'surprise' he was angry.
"You can't be surprised that somebody whose loved one is attacked is angry and wants to go out and attack. What he did go on to say... is that he realised that it was too dark for him, he went and got himself help," she added.
Neeson, 66, came under fire after appearing on Good Morning America while attempting to explain a recent confession at a press junket that he once walked the streets 'with a cosh', hoping to find a black person to kill, following the rape of a close friend.
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He said: "There were some nights I went out deliberately into black areas looking to be set upon so that I could unleash physical violence. And I did it maybe four or five times until it caught myself on and it really shocked me.
"It shocked me and it hurt me. I did seek help, I went to a priest, I was reared Catholic."
Another celebrity to defend Neeson was John Barnes after Piers Morgan slammed the Taken star for the comments.
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While hosting Good Morning Britain, Susanna Reid Morgan said Neeson's comments were 'like Ku Klux Klan stuff' and Morgan compared Neeson's situation to that of Mel Gibson - Mel was shunned by Hollywood back in 2004 after being accused of making anti-Semitic comments.
Following this Barnes appeared on ITV's This Morning arguing that Neeson has a 'racial bias' rather than actually holding racist views himself.
Barnes said: "It [racial bias] is subliminal but it's not obvious, it's very similar to subliminally Piers and Susanna talking about, 'I know if I was black, this is how I would feel'.
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"What they're actually saying is, 'This is how you should feel', and for me, I find that insulting, condescending because there's no way Piers Morgan or Susanna could ever know what it's like to feel black or how they would react had they been black.
"What they're actually doing is the exact same thing they're accusing Liam Neeson of doing. They're accusing Liam Neeson of looking at one guilty black man and making everybody guilty."
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