The actor spoke with "20/20" for a two-hour special.
Fourteen years after he was acquitted of murdering his wife, actor Robert Blake is launching a tirade against the police and prosecutors.
“To this day I hate them. I'm still here, you bastards! I'm still here! I didn’t die in that box. You got it? I'm still here! I'm 85 years old, I’m beat up all to hell and gone but I’m still here. And you're still pounding the beat. Smoke that!” he told ABC News.
Blake spoke with “20/20” for a two-hour special airing Friday night on the Hollywood saga that transfixed America.
“A lot of people look back on this case and they say, ‘Oh, how did Robert Blake get off?’ The answer is there wasn’t a lot of evidence,” ABC News’ Dan Abrams told Inside Edition.
Blake was a child actor who rose to fame playing a psychopathic killer in “In Cold Blood” and a detective on TV's “Baretta.”
In November 2000, he married Bonnie Lee Bakley, a small-time swindler who had been married nine times. They had a baby daughter, Rose, whom Blake doted on.
After just seven months of marriage, Bonnie Lee was shot dead in the passenger seat of Blake's car, moments after leaving an Italian restaurant in Los Angeles where they had been having dinner. Blake ran to a neighboring house for help and that neighbor called 911.
Blake was charged with his wife's murder. He seemed shocked and wept openly in court when he heard the verdict of not guilty.
He's been living a quiet life since then until his reemergence for Friday night’s explosive “20/20” interview.
As for Rose, she was raised by Blake’s adult daughter. She's now 18 years old.
“He is still the same angry, determined, at times charming actor and guy that he was back then, and that makes this a particularly compelling story,” ABC News’ Dan Abrams told Inside Edition.
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