Robert De Niro said that his speech at the Gotham awards in New York was censored without his knowledge due to his anti-Trump comments.
De Niro came to 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 out some remarks about the film, said that the first part of his speech had been removed from the prompter.
He then read the missing section of the speech from his phone, saying: “History isn’t history any more. Truth is not truth. Even facts are being replaced by alternative facts and driven by conspiracy theories and ugliness. In Florida, young students are taught that slaves developed skills which can be applied for their personal benefit. The entertainment industry isn’t immune to this festering disease. The Duke, John Wayne, famously said of Native Americans, I don’t feel we did wrong in taking this great country away from them. There were great numbers of people who needed new land and the Indians were selfishly trying to keep it for themselves.”
De Niro added: “Lying has become just 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’s keeping up the pace in his current campaign of retribution. But with all his lies, he can’t hide his soul. He attacks the weak, destroys the gifts of nature, and shows disrespect – for example by using ‘Pocahontas’ as a slur.”
De Niro then refused to thank the film’s backers, Apple, referring to the removal of part of his speech: “I don’t feel like thanking them at all for what they did. How dare they do that, actually.”
Apple and the Gotham awards have been contacted for comment.
De Niro has a long history of verbally attacking Trump. In a pre-election video in 2016 he said: “He’s so blatantly stupid. He’s a punk. He’s a dog. He’s a pig. A con. 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 jail,” and in October he sent a statement to the Stop Trump Summit in New York, calling the former president “evil” and “a wannabe tough guy with no morals or ethics”.
