Robert De Niro has hit out at the organisers of a film awards ceremony for cutting out a portion of his speech which criticised former US president Donald Trump.
Martin Scorcese’s Flowers of the Killer Moon was being honoured with the Historical Icon and Creator Tribute award at the Gotham Independent Film Awards on Monday, with DeNiro, who also starred in the film, presenting the award.
While giving his speech, the actor noticed that the script appearing on his teleprompter had been edited without his permission.
De Niro continued his speech but said at the end: “The beginning of my speech was edited, cut out, I didn’t know about it. And I want to read it.”
He then read from the original, unedited speech which he seemed to have saved on his phone.
“History isn’t history anymore. Truth is not truth. Even facts are being replaced by alternative facts and driven by conspiracy theories and ugliness,” the two-time Oscar winner said.
The actor criticised Florida’s Black history curriculum which now tells students that enslaved people “developed skills” that “could be applied for their personal benefit.”
“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,” DeNiro said.
“He attacks the weak, destroys the gifts of nature, and shows disrespect, for example, by using Pocahontas as a slur,” De Niro added, referring to Trump’s use of the famous Native American woman as an insult against Democrat Senator Elizabeth Warren.
The Raging Bull star and long-time-critic of Trump said he was supposed to thank the organisers of the awards but didn’t feel like it after his speech was chopped.
“So I’m going to say these things, but to Apple and thank them and all that, Gotham, blah blah blah, Apple, but, who — I don’t feel like thanking them at all, for what they did. How dare they do that, actually,” he told the cheering audience.
