Robert De Niro gets standing applause for saying 'f*** Trump' at 72nd Tony Awards
Robert De Niro's expletive-ridden diatribe against US President Danald Trump at Sunday night's Tony Awards may not have made it past the censors, but it did not prevent the audience from giving the veteran actor a standing ovation.
De Niro took the stage at the 72nd Tony Awards to introduce musician Bruce Springsteen's performance and wasted no time before hurling the f-bombs: "I'm gonna say one thing: f*** Trump! It's no longer 'down with Trump', it's f*** Trump!"
Robert De Niro joins the force with the many celebrities who have spoken up against Trump, either on television, reality shows or at award ceremonies, including, Jimmy Kimmel, Meryl Streep, Alec Baldwin, George Clooney, Chelsea Handler, Lady Gaga, John Legend and several others.
The celebrities have reportedly complained about Trump's abusive use of powers to exploit both women and the ones who are not as powerful as him.
But more than any other celebrities, De Niro has taken to Trump bashing with a vengeance, and has even banned the president from all his Nobu restaurants.
CBS bleeped the audio for the live telecast, however, fans took to Twitter to exclaim that De Niro had said nothing wrong for his comments to be censored.
"Robert De Niro just yelled "Fuck Trump!" on national television before introducing Bruce Springsteen, and I am absolutely here for it," one fan said.
He also asked the audience, as reported in the Telegraph UK, to cast their votes in the primaries in November and commended Springsteen for his own political alignment, just before the singer gave out a performance based on 'Springsteen on Broadway' where he sang his classic hit 'My Hometown'.
De Niro said, "Bruce, you can rock the house like nobody else and even more importantly in these perilous times, you rock the vote, always fighting for, in your own words, truth, transparency, and integrity in government. Boy, do we need that now."
A video of Robert De Niro, which was published some time back on YouTube, had received massive response among fans.
The USA Today reported that De Niro's explicit comments actually took a few people by surprise in the press room, such as John Tiffany (director of Harry Potter and the Cursed Child), who mistook Robert De Niro for Al Pacino and said, "Did Al Pacino just say (expletive) Trump?... It was Robert De Niro? That's even worse!"
Tony Kushner too joined in claiming, "(Expletive) Trump, I agree...the Hitler mistake." Kushner also went on to say, "And there are a lot of analogies in history, and unfortunately, they never end well. So hopefully this will end before he ends us."