Robert De Niro Blasts Trump in Gotham Awards Speech, Claims Studio Tried to 'Cut Out' the Comments

"How dare they do that," the actor said after claiming his criticism about former President Donald Trump had been "cut" from his speech

Robert De Niro claims his remarks about former President Donald Trump were almost cut from his award show speech without his permission.

De Niro, 80, took the stage at the 2023 Gotham Awards held at New York City's Cipriani Wall Street Monday to present the show's historical icon and creator tribute to his film Killers of the Flower Moon.

During his speech, the actor paused and told the audience he learned part of his speech had been removed from the teleprompter and instead began to read from his phone.

“I just want to say one thing: The beginning of my speech was edited, cut out. I didn’t know about it. And I want to read it," De Niro said.

"Thank you. History isn’t history anymore. Truth is not truth. Even facts are being replaced by alternative facts and driven by conspiracy theories and ugliness. In Florida, young students are taught that slaves develop skills which can be applied for their personal benefit."

"The entertainment industry isn’t immune to this festering disease," he continued. "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 also criticized Trump and appeared to imply that Apple, the studio that produced Killers of the Flower Moon, was responsible for editing out that portion of his speech.

Reps for the Gotham Awards and Apple did not immediately respond to PEOPLE's requests for comment.

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"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," De Niro said of Trump, 77, in his speech. "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.”

De Niro, who has been outspoken about Trump in the past, received applause from the audience after he said again "that they edited all that," before presenting his Killers of the Flower Moon costars with the night's award.

"So I'm going to say these things, but to Apple, and thank them and all that, Gotham, blah, blah, blah, Apple — I don't feel like thanking them at all for what they did," he added. "How dare they do that, actually."

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Past Lives won the night's best feature film award, while Killers star Lily Gladstone won outstanding lead performance for her other major role this year, in the film The Unknown Country. Charles Melton won outstanding supporting performance for his role in the upcoming film May December.

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