Just months before his sudden passing, Sam Neill said he received violent threats that were very “shocking and disturbing.”
“There are some loose cannons,” he said of the people who were hostile towards him, according to an Instagram video he shared months before his passing.
His family announced on Monday, July 13, that the Jurassic Park star lost his life in a “sudden and unexpected” manner.
Sam Neill revealed before his passing that he had received violent threats on his life
Image credits: Hugh Peterswald/Pacific Press/LightRocket via Getty Images
“It is with immense sadness that the whānau [extended family] of Sam Neill share the news of his passing on Monday, 13th July, in Sydney, Australia,” the family wrote in a statement.
The actor, highly regarded for being one of New Zealand’s best known actors, was “surrounded by family and passed with the dignity that has characterized his whole life,” the statement continued.
“The loss was sudden and unexpected, but blessed by the fact that Sam remained cancer-free,” they added.
Image credits: goBendigoNZ
The cause of Neill’s passing was not revealed.
The actor lost his life just months after announcing that he was cancer-free. He was diagnosed in 2022 with stage three angioimmunoblastic T-cell lymphoma, a type of blood cancer.
“I’m not afraid to d*e, but it would annoy me,” he previously told The Guardian while undergoing treatment.
“I’m not afraid to d*e, but it would annoy me,” the Jurassic Park star previously said
Image credits: Universal/Getty Images
Despite his announcement of being free of cancer, Neill was still in the middle of a controversy and faced violent threats to his life earlier this year.
He spoke out against a proposed large-scale gold mine several miles away from his farm in New Zealand’s Central Otago district.
After he publicly objected to the government’s plans to fast-track the mine, he revealed that he was on the receiving end of “shocking and disturbing” threats.
The Peaky Blinders actor said he was against the plans of opening “a big, actually a vast, open-cast goldmine that has [been] proposed to be fast-tracked in [his] neighborhood, in central Otago.”
“I stand by those views, and I’m glad I voiced them,” he said in an Instagram video in April.
“What I wasn’t prepared for was the personal ab**e I would come in for,” he continued.
After opposing the government’s plans to fast-track the mine, Neill stood by his views but was surprised by the threats
Image credits: goBendigoNZ
It was reported at the time that the Australian mining company Santana Minerals was pushing to expedite a 210-acre open-cast gold mine called Bendigo-Ophir.
The country’s resources minister, Shane Jones, known for strongly backing resource extraction projects, was among those who criticized Neill for his opposition.
“And that started with Shane Jones … he chose to make this personal, and I’m baffled as to why he would do that … he’s a guy I don’t understand. Not at all,” Neill said in his video.
The Kiwi icon was stunned by the “personal ab**e” he saw online from supporters of the mine.
“The amount of personal ab**e that came in online, all over the shop, was frankly very shocking and disturbing, including threats of physical violence,” he said.
“There’s some very unpleasant people among the supporters of this mine,” he went on to say. “I’m not saying they’re all like that, but boy, there are some loose cannons.”
“I was completely blown away by the toxicity of the opposition that I met,” the Kiwi icon said
Image credits: goBendigoNZ
Neill, born Nigel John Dermot Neill in 1947 in Omagh, Northern Ireland, moved to New Zealand with his family when he was around seven.
The actor had been running a pinot noir vineyard in the country’s most southerly wine region for about three decades.
He believed that if Bendigo-Ophir scored a victory in fast-tracking the approval for the gold mine, then “one of the most beautiful and remote places in the world” would be destroyed.
Image credits: samneilltheprop
“When I started to express misgivings about this mine and the potential damage it could do, I was completely blown away by the toxicity of the opposition that I met,” he told The Guardian in April.
At the time, the Piano star said he believes Central Otago, which has the lowest unemployment in New Zealand, was “flourishing economically,” and the last thing they needed was a “toxic mine upstream.”
“One of the great responsibilities we have in life is we should leave the planet better than we found it,” he told the outlet.
Neill’s passing left fans and celebrities in mourning.
New Zealand Prime Minister Christopher Luxon called him “one of the greats” in a tribute on social media.
“He started out when there was barely a film industry in this country to speak of,” he wrote. “For more than fifty years, he took New Zealand stories to the world, and his talents helped make our film industry into what it is today – one of our greatest cultural exports.”
“This alone should be enough reason to stop the whole thing to teach people violence will never get them anywhere,” one commented online
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