2023 Gotham Awards
The Killers of the Flower Moon star claimed his Gotham Awards speech was censored during Monday’s live ceremony
During the tribute to Martin Scorsese’s Apple film Killers of the Flower Moon at this year’s Gotham Awards, Robert De Niro claimed that his original speech had been edited.
“I just want to say one thing,” he said during Monday night’s ceremony in New York City, according to Variety. “The beginning of my speech was edited, cut out, and I didn’t know about it. And I want to read it.
De Niro, who stars in the movie, had been tasked with introducing the Historical Icon and Creator Tribute award on behalf of Killers of the Flower Moon, which also stars Leonardo DiCaprio and Lily Gladstone. The Oscar-winning actor then pulled out his phone and appeared to read the unedited version of his script.
“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,” he continued. “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.”
“So I’m going to say these things but to Apple and thank them all that,” De Niro added towards the end of his speech. “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…”
The Gotham Awards and Apple did not immediately respond to Rolling Stone‘s request for comment.
In May, Rolling Stone called Killers of the Flower Moon Scorsese’s great American tragedy and praised the director’s “reverence for a culture that survived a horrible trauma.” The film is based on the 2017 book of the same name by David Grann and tells the story of the Osage people of Oklahoma after the discovery of oil on their land leads white settlers to murder them for their wealth.