The actor accuses Apple of censoring his speech with swipes at Donald Trump.
Actor Robert De Niro gave a speech at the Gotham Awards in New York on November 27th, where he also strongly criticized former President Donald Trump. The 80-year-old was on stage at the “Historical Icon and Creator Tribute Award” ceremony for the film “Killers of the Fower Moon” and had prepared a speech that was made available to him to read via teleprompter. But as he began to read, he thought he noticed that his prepared text had been shortened. “The beginning of my speech was edited, cut out,” he said, surprised on stage. “I didn’t know anything about that,” he explained further. According to film star Apple, which is responsible for the production and organization of the film and TV award, is to blame for the censorship.
De Niro insisted on keeping the original speech following a recorded clip of “Killers of the Fower Moon” and continued using his cell phone instead of a teleprompter. He said: “History is no longer history. The truth is not the truth, and even facts are replaced by alternative facts and dominated by conspiracy theories and ugliness.”
He continued: “In Florida, young students are taught that slaves developed skills that they could use to their personal advantage. The entertainment industry is not immune to this festering disease.” For him, the lie is just “another tool in the charlatan’s arsenal.”
Here is the video of Robert De Niro’s speech:
Direct word to former President Trump
De Niro has often made negative comments about Trump in the past and once again made it clear on stage what he thinks of him: “The former president lied to us more than 30,000 times during his four years in office and is continuing his current campaign of retaliation he picks up the pace. For all his lies, he can’t hide his soul. He attacks the weak, destroys nature’s gifts and shows his disrespect by, for example, using ‘Pocahontas’ as a curse word.” The last statement was a reference to Trump’s condescending nickname for US Senator Elizabeth Warren.
“How dare they do that?”
At this point in his speech he made the audience aware that he had continued the shortened speech. Finally, he made the accusation against Apple. He will “thank Apple and them and all that. Gotham. Blah, blah, blah, Apple,” said the actor. “But I have absolutely no desire to be with them [Apple] to thank them for what they have done. How dare they do that?”, referring to the censorship of a speech.
“Killers of the Flower Moon”
On October 19, 2023, Martin Scorsese’s work “Killers of the Flower Moon” was released in German cinemas. The true crime thriller is based on the non-fiction book “The Crime” by David Grann and deals with the gruesome crime committed against the Osage Indians in Oklahoma in the 1920s. Leonardo DiCaprio and Robert De Niro star in the lead roles.