Acclaimed actor Robert de Niro declared that the Gotham Awards “edited” and “removed” parts of his speech that contained direct criticism of former United States President Donald Trump.
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But that didn’t stop him from reading the uncensored version of the text.
According to The Hollywood Reporter, the Oscar winner went on stage to introduce a tribute to Martin Scorsese for Killers of the Flower Moon and, upon reading his speech, he ended up realizing that his previously written text had been reduced by the organization.
He then decided to share the unedited version with the audience and criticized Trump, as usual, calling him a “charlatan”.
“History is no longer history. Truth is not truth, and even facts are being replaced by alternative facts and driven by conspiracy theories and ugliness,” De Niro said on stage.
“In Florida, young students learn that slaves developed skills that could be applied to their personal benefit. The entertainment industry is not immune to this festering disease. The Duke, John Wayne, famously said about Native Americans: ‘ I don’t feel that we were wrong in taking this great country from them. There were a large number of people who needed new land, and the Indians were selfishly trying to keep it for themselves”.
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He continued: “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 is keeping pace with his current campaign of retribution.
“With all his lies, he cannot hide his soul. He preys on the weak, destroys the gifts of nature, and shows his disrespect, for example, by using Pocahontas as a slur,” referring to Trump’s nickname for Senator Elizabeth Warren.
Apparently, De Niro was supposed to end his Gotham Awards speech with a thank you to Apple, the producer and distributor of Killers of the Flower Moon, but he chose not to do so and blamed the studio for his doctored speech.
“I don’t feel like thanking them after what they did. How dare they do this, really?”
Killers of the Flower Moon was released in theaters on October 20th.