Liam Neeson Opens Up About the Sweet Surprise His Late Wife Natasha Richardson Gave Him at Their Wedding

Suzy Byrne
·Editor, Yahoo Entertainment
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Liam Neeson and Natasha Richardson in 2004. (Photo: Getty Images)

Liam Neeson and Natasha Richardson had a love story for the ages — and their 1994 wedding in Northern Ireland was part of that.

The Taken actor, 63, got nostalgic in an interview on Radio Andy’s My Favorite Song, reminiscing about marrying the late British actress in his homeland and the surprise she had in store for him. The Parent Trap star serenaded him with Van Morrison’s “Crazy Love."

"Behind my back Natasha had been taking singing lessons to sing it to me,” Neeson told host John Benjamin Hickey. “After the ceremony, we were all going out to start the night’s festivities and she grabbed the microphone and she sang me this.”

He continued, “She had learned it and I was like, ‘Wow!’”

Neeson and Richardson, who met performing in a revival of Anna Christie on Broadway, went on to have two sons (Micheál, 20, and Daniel, 19) and remained happily married until she died suddenly after a ski accident in 2009. She took a tumble on the slopes in Canada, spoke with her husband after, but she later died from head injuries. Neeson had to make the difficult decision to remove her from life support.

“I went in to her and told her I loved her,” he said on 60 Minutes in 2014. “Said, 'Sweetie, you’re not coming back from this. You’ve banged your head. It’s — I don’t know if you can hear me, but that’s — this is what’s gone down.“

It seems that Neeson and Richardson actually had two weddings. In addition to tying the knot in the Emerald Isle, they were also married 90 miles north of New York City at their country home in Millbrook, New York, on July 3, 1994. Guests included Mia Farrow, Lauren Bacall, Ralph Fiennes, and of course members of her famous family of actors. At that wedding, a choir serenaded the pair with "Morning Has Broken."

Richardson was later buried by their Millbrook home and Neeson frequently visits her final resting place.

"Tasha, she’s buried up near our house,” he told GQ in 2014. “Old cemetery. Her grandmother, too. I go see Tasha once or twice a week. Just to talk. I like it.”