Actor Robert Blake accused CNN’s Piers Morgan of calling him a liar and much more in a combative, profanity-laced interview Wednesday night.
Blake, 78, said he agreed to appear on Morgan’s program to promote his self-published memoir Tales Of A Rascal, but a different topic came up.
Blake was acquitted in 2005 in connection with the murder of his wife Bonnie Lee Bakley, though he was found liable in a wrongful death lawsuit.
Ordered to pay $30 million, Blake subsequently filed for bankruptcy. When Morgan asked if he was being truthful last night, it got ugly fast.
When Morgan asked about the case, including the civil suit, Blake demanded: “Do you know why I was arrested?” “Tell me,” Morgan said.
“Well, before you start asking questions, you should do some goddamn research,” Blake said, later adding that “no one calls me a liar.”
At one point during Blake’s tirades, Morgan asked: “Are you sane?”
“I didn’t write about that life and I didn’t write a book about Bonnie.”
The actor has long maintained his innocence, raising questions about Bakley’s past and her relationships with other men as a possible motive.
Bakley, who also had a well publicized relationship with Marlon Brando’s son Christian, was found shot in the head in North Hollywood in 2001.
He and Bakley, who he calls “a con artist,” married six months earlier after a paternity test revealed her child belonged to Blake not Brando.
“Bonnie had people that she burned. How bad I don’t know. Did she steal everything from them? We’ll leave that alone,” Blake said.
“But nobody really knew where Bonnie was. She had 15 ID cards. She had 15 credit cards. She had different places where she lived.”
“Nobody could ever find her if they were looking for her.”
“But one day somebody opened the paper and saw that Bonnie just married Robert Blake and where does Robert Blake live. And what, a couple of weeks later, she was dead. I want you to chew on that for a bit.”
Blake’s use of profanity is nothing new, but his tone – accusing Morgan of insulting him by raising questions about the case – was certainly noteworthy for a live interview, causing Blake to trend nationally on Twitter.