UPDATED: Martin Scorsese has shared the following statement amid Robert De Niro‘s comments regarding alleged censorship of his Gotham Awards speech: “The Gotham Awards honored the filmmakers and cast with The Historical Icon & Creator tribute, which recognizes significant moments in history and for bringing a story to life in an authentic way on screen. We all wanted to make sure that in the limited time available, the acceptance speech had space to acknowledge our Osage collaborators on-stage and at home, as well as our entire cast and filmmaking team. Apple has been a tremendous partner and there was no censorship. There was an unfortunate miscommunication regarding the final version of the speech. The event was a beautiful moment for our cast and collaborators to be reunited for the first time since the strikes. It was an incredible honor to receive this recognition.”
EARLIER: At this year’s Gotham Awards ceremony, held in New York City on November 27, “Killers of the Flower Moon” star Robert De Niro unexpectedly turned a planned speech into a public statement of a different stripe, as he alleged onstage at the annual event that Apple and its awards team had censored his anti-Trump speech.
He appeared to suffer technical difficulties reading his self-written remarks from the teleprompter, only to realize that “they edited all that.” His speech began by slamming 2024 presidential candidate Donald Trump: “He attacks the weak, destroys the gifts of nature, and shows disrespect, for example, by using ‘Pocahontas’ as a slur.” He was onstage to introduce “Killers of the Flower Moon” at the New York film event.
Now, in a new interview with Rolling Stone, De Niro elaborated on what exactly happened at the awards show. As he explained to the outlet, De Niro also intended to use his time to make pointed remarks about censorship of the David Grann-penned source material in Oklahoma, with help from a speech writer.
“What happened was I was working on the speech with a writer, Lewis Friedman, and he gave it to them, and then one of the consultants had put something in the speech about how kids in Oklahoma aren’t even able to read the book ‘Killers of the Flower Moon,’” De Niro said, harking to a point “Killers” star Lily Gladstone has made before about how the book isn’t taught in certain parts of the country. “And then I didn’t hear anything. They gave me the script, and I looked at the prompter, and I asked after, ‘What happened?’”
The actor also added that “Flower Moon” director Martin Scorsese attempted to reach out to him, alerting him to editorial changes, prior to De Niro taking the stage. De Niro continued in the Rolling Stone chat, “They assumed that I had spoken to Marty or somebody about it, but I hadn’t. They assumed that I would be OK with it, and maybe I’m still getting it wrong, and I wasn’t. Marty and I spoke about it the next day and he said, ‘Yeah, I had sent you a text and [Apple] asked if you could dial it down, respectfully.’”
At the Gothams, mid-speech, De Niro said, “I’m going to thank Apple, Gothams, Apple, blah blah blah. But I don’t feel like thanking them at all after what they did. How dare they, actually?” He added, “The beginning of my speech was edited, cut out … and I want to read it. History isn’t history anymore. Truth is not truth. […] Lying has become just another tool in the charlatan’s arsenal.”
De Niro has long been a public opposer of Donald Trump dating back to the media personality and now accused criminal’s presidential term. The day after the Gothams, sources told Variety that the mishap was merely a miscommunication, that there were multiple versions of the speech, and that “Killers of the Flower Moon” backer Apple never intended to censor De Niro’s remarks. He’s in the conversation for a Best Supporting Actor Oscar nomination this year.
A representative for De Niro declined to comment further. IndieWire has also reached out to reps for Martin Scorsese.
