Liam Neeson’s Catholic guilt got the better of him.
The Irish actor, 71, made a startling confession to a priest when he was a teenager — and he now claims it led the man of the cloth to lambast him over the admission.
Neeson revealed on an upcoming episode of the “Conan O’Brien Needs a Friend” podcast that he ceased going to confession after the priest shamed him for admitting that he indulged in self-pleasure.
The “Taken” star began his saga by telling host Conan O’Brien in clip obtained by Entertainment Weekly, that the incident occurred when he was 15.
He was living in Ireland at the time and a missionary from Africa had stopped by his parish.
“It was a great event when you had a missionary visiting from Africa,” he said. “And he’d be there for a week and you’d go to Mass every night. And as an altar boy, I’d be serving at Mass, but to hear your confession from him it was like a big deal.”
Neeson then dished that he saw a clan of “old women just outside the confessional kneeling down and saying their prayers” as he went into the room for confession with said-clergyman.
“So we start, and I had learned how to pleasure myself at home, onto the sheets, right? I had looked up the appropriate word. I remember that… ‘Masturbate’? ‘Masturbation’? Okay. That seems harmless enough,” the “Schindler’s List” Oscar nominee hilariously added.
He also noted that he began his concession by telling the priest ordinary mistakes such as having an argument with his mother and having a fight with his sister.
And then, Neeson — who is infamously a well-endowed member of Hollywood’s underground “Big D-list” — admitted to the “Big M.”
The priest was so shocked at the statement and began shouting at the young/future action star, bellowing: “YOU WHAT!?”
“This guy, literally, I mean, he almost said things like, ‘The grass will grow over the palm of your hand before you’re 21! Stop that evil practice!’” Neeson recalled.
He went to to add that the women who were praying outside the door heard the entire conversation and Neeson frantically left the room in a hurry.
“That was the last time I ever went [to confession],” Neeson admitted.
The “Love, Actually” actor has been open in the past about his Christian faith, even narrating a CNN documentary called “The Pope” back in 2018.
He grew up in an Irish Catholic household where he served as an altar boy — even thinking about going the route of being a priest before entering Hollywood.
Neeson also shared how his film career and religion intersect, telling Movie Guide in 2014 that there is “a little light that goes off in my head when I read a script that’s faith-based in some way.”
“The Church has always appealed to me in some way, especially when I became an actor, and I’m certainly questing after God and the nature of God. So, I am drawn to it, I must admit,” Neeson said.
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