Actor Robert De Niro claimed during a speech on stage at the Gotham Awards on Monday that part of his speech, which referenced Former President Donald Trump, was cut out without his knowledge, according to reports.
"I just want to say one thing," he said. "The beginning of my speech was edited, cut out, and I didn’t know about it. And I want to read it. History isn’t history anymore. Truth is not truth. Even facts are being replaced by alternative facts, and driven by conspiracy theories and ugliness."
De Niro brought up Florida's school history curriculum on slavery, which Vice President Harris claimed included lessons on how enslaved people "benefited from slavery."
"In Florida, young students are taught that slaves developed skills that could be applied for their personal benefit," De Niro said. "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 said Trump lied to us "more than 30,000 times" while in office and then said he wanted to thank Apple TV+, which financed his new movie, "Killers of the Flower Moon."
"So I’m going to say these things but to Apple and thank them all that," De Niro continued, finishing the speech, according to Variety. "Gotham, blah blah blah, but I don’t feel like thanking them at all for what they did. How dare they do that, actually. But now I will go to: Accepting the award for ‘Killers of the Flower Moon’…"
"Killers of the Flower Moon" centers around the real-life Osage Indian murders committed in the 1920s after oil was discovered on tribal land.
The 79-year-old actor portrays William Hale, the cattle farmer who orchestrated the murders which spurned a years-long FBI investigation until his conviction in 1929.
LEONARDO DECAPRIO WANTED VILLIAN ROLE IN ‘KILLERS OF THE FLOWER MOON’ DESPITE CONCERN FROM STUDIO
De Niro compared the character to Trump in May.
"There’s a feeling of entitlement [that] I guess you could say we became a lot more aware after George Floyd–systemic racism. It’s the banality of evil, and we see it now with — I’m not going to say the name because that guy is stupid," De Niro said. "Imagine if you’re smart. Even Hale was smart in many ways."
De Niro also said during his speech at the Gotham awards that Trump "can't hide his soul."
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"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. Filmmakers, on the other hand, strive — this is where I came in and I saw that they edited all that," he said.
Fox News Digital reached out to Apple for comment. This story will be updated with any response.
