Movie
The actor said his speech was edited to remove polemics against falsification of history
Robert De Niro said his speech at the Gotham Awards in New York was censored without his knowledge due to his anti-Trump comments.
De Niro took the stage as part of the Gotham historical icon and creator tribute for the Martin Scorsese-directed Killers of the Flower Moon and, after reading some remarks about the film, said that the first part of his speech had been removed from the film be the prompter.
He then read the missing part of the speech on his phone and said: “History is no longer history. Truth is not truth. Even facts are being replaced by alternative facts and fueled by conspiracy theories and ugliness. In Florida, young students are taught that slaves developed skills that they could use for their personal gain. The entertainment industry is not immune to this festering disease. Duke John Wayne famously said of the Native Americans, “I don’t think we did any wrong in taking this great land from them.” There were large numbers of people who needed new land, and the Indians tried selfishly “To keep it to yourself.”
De Niro added: “Lying has become another tool in the charlatan’s arsenal. The former president lied to us more than 30,000 times during his four years in office, and he is keeping up that pace in his current campaign of retaliation. But despite all his lies, he can’t hide his soul. He attacks the weak, destroys nature’s gifts and shows disrespect – for example by using “Pocahontas” as a swear word.”
De Niro then refused to thank the film’s backers, Apple, citing the removal of part of his speech: “I don’t feel like thanking them at all for what they did. How dare they actually do that?”
Apple and the Gotham Awards have been contacted for comment.
De Niro has a long history of verbal attacks on Trump. In a 2016 pre-election video, he said: “He’s so obviously stupid. He’s a punk. He is a dog. He’s a pig. A scam. A bullshit artist. A mutt who doesn’t know what he’s talking about.” In 2019, he told the Guardian, “I can’t wait to see him in prison,” and in October he sent a statement to the Stop Trump Summit in New York, in which he called the former president “evil” and “a wannabe tough guy with no morals or ethics.”
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