Liam Neeson reveals he talks to late wife Natasha Richardson ‘every day’
(Picture: Getty Images)Liam Neeson has said he talks to his late wife Natasha Richardson daily when he visits her grave in New York.
Richardson, the daughter of actress Vanessa Redgrave and director Tony Richardson, died at the age of 45 after falling into a coma following a head injury on the slopes in Canada in March 2009.
The couple married in 1994 after meeting while working on Broadway’s Anna Christie the year before, and welcomed two sons; Micheál Richardson, 27, and Daniel Neeson, 26.
The Love Actually actor, 70, previously spoke about his loss and how he keeps her memory alive 13 years on.
During a 2020 interview with Inquirer.net, Neeson, who lives in upstate New York, said: “I speak to her every day at her grave which is about a mile and a half down the road.
“I go down there quite often, so I do speak to her as if she’s here. Not that she answers me.”
Award-winning theatre star Richardson became critically ill with a head injury following what initially seemed to be a minor fall during a private skiing lesson on a green slope – suitable for beginners – at the resort of Mont-Tremblant, 80 miles from Québec.
Witnesses said that after the fall she got up laughing and refused to see a doctor, walked back to her hotel and even signed a medical form saying that she did not need help.
An hour later, she was taken to hospital after her condition rapidly worsened. Doctors told Neeson, who had been filming in Toronto, that she had deteriorated because of huge swelling in her brain.
In 2014, The Schindler’s List star spoke of the moment that he knew Richardson would not survive her skiing accident, telling her in hospital: “Sweetie, you’re not coming back from this.”
The actor said he decided to “pull the plug” on her because of a pact the couple had made in case either of them fell into a vegetative state.
Speaking to CBS’s 60 Minutes in 2014, Neeson said that when he arrived at the Canadian hospital he was told by doctors that his wife was brain dead.
He said: “She was on life support… I went in to her and I told her I loved her, said, ‘Sweetie, you’re not coming back from this, you’ve banged your head’.
“She and I had made a pact, if either of us got into a vegetative state that we’d pull the plug. That was my immediate thought. ‘Okay, these tubes have to go. She’s gone.’”
However, Neeson said he did keep Richardson alive for a short period so that family members and friends could say goodbye. It was then decided that she would donate her organs, with her heart, kidneys and liver all used.
