The iconic actor Robert De Niro was in the middle of presenting an award at the Gotham Independent Film awards ceremony on Monday when he looked up at the teleprompter and noticed that something in his planned speech was missing. Someone—it’s not clear exactly who—had allegedly cut out the first part, including remarks that he’d written criticizing Donald Trump.
DeNiro was presenting a tribute award for the film “Killers of the Flower Moon,” in which he co-stars, when he called out the apparently deliberate decision to edit his remarks. Then, true to form, he read them anyway.
As reported by Jennifer Hassan, writing for the Washington Post, the two-time Oscar winner was not pleased at being censored.
De Niro was presenting the Historical Icon and Creator Tribute award at the Gotham Independent Film Awards on Monday, when, mid-speech, he paused and looked confused as he read off the teleprompter.
De Niro... said: “I just want to say one thing. The beginning of my speech was edited, cut out, I didn’t know about it. And I want to read it.”
Fortunately, as Hassan reports, De Niro had saved a copy of his whole speech on his phone, which he then picked up, proceeding to reiterate his remarks in their intended form.
An edited video of De Niro’s speech at the ceremony is below. At the very outset, and then at about the 45 second mark, he seems to notice that something is amiss. At the 1:19 mark he calls out the alleged editing and reads the entire omitted portion of the speech off of his phone.
The portion of DeNiro’s remarks that were apparently edited out included—ironically enough—statements noting that the entertainment industry “isn’t immune” to what De Niro characterized as the “festering disease” of susceptibility to “alternative facts” and “conspiracy theories.” He specifically calls out former actor John Wayne’s statements about Indigenous tribes and their purportedly “selfish” attitudes about keeping their lands, as an example of these attitudes.
The Hollywood Reporter’s Christy Pina and Hilary Lewis provide the relevant sections of De Niro’s full, intended speech:
“History isn’t history anymore. Truth isn’t truth, and even facts are being replaced by alternative facts and driven by conspiracy theories and ugliness,” De Niro said onstage. “In Florida, young students are taught that slaves developed skills that could 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.'”
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 he’s keeping up the pace with his current campaign of retribution. With all of his lies, he can’t hide his soul. He attacks the weak, destroys the gifts of nature and shows his disrespect for example using Pocahontas as a slur,” referencing Trump’s popular nickname for Senator Elizabeth Warren.
At that point De Niro indicated that he had reached the point of his speech that he’d already covered in his opening remarks. But he wasn’t quite done yet. As Pina and Lewis report:
“I’m gonna say these things, but to Apple and thank them and all that, Gothams, blah, blah, blah, Apple,” De Niro said. “But I don’t feel like thanking them at all after what they did. How dare they do that, actually?”
“Killers of the Flower Moon” was produced by Apple Studios. Both the Post and the Hollywood Reporter sought comment from Apple and Gotham Awards, but there is no indication they’ve heard back from them yet.
De Niro has criticized Donald Trump on multiple occasions. (For his part, Trump has called De Niro a “very low IQ individual.”) Perhaps De Niro’s most biting assessment of Trump was delivered in October 2016, just prior to the election that placed Trump into the Oval Office.
A video conveying De Niro’s opinion of Trump at that time, prepared by the Associated Press, is below:
To date there appears to be no indication who ordered the editing of De Niro’s speech on Monday, why it was edited, or at whose behest the editing was done [Update: see Charles Jay’s post which provides the very likely answers to these questions].
