What Did Robert De Niro Say At The Tony Awards?

Robert De Niro didn’t set foot on a Broadway stage this past year, yet on last night’s Tony Awards, he received one of the loudest and most sustained ovations of the night with only two words: “Fuck Trump.”

De Niro was on stage at the Tonys to introduce Bruce Springsteen, whose spoken-word-into-“My Hometown” performance is a whole other conversation that you should really consider having today. But De Niro stepped up to the mic and decided to get one thing out of the way first. “I’m just going to say one thing,” De Niro said, “Fuck Trump!” And then after the audience burst into laughter applause, he doubled down: “It’s no longer ‘down with Trump.’ It’s ‘fuck Trump!'”

There may not be any angels in America, but according to De Niro there’s at least one devil. And once, on this island we call Manhattan, the two-time Oscar winner took the stage, leaned into the mic and cursed (child, you should’ve heard it). The Band’s Visit would go on to win the Tony for Best Musical.

CBS censors were quick on the trigger, excising everything DeNiro said up to the point where he started basking in the audience’s reaction and putting up his dukes like he was Jake LaMotta in his prime. De Niro’s “Fuck Trump” reverberated all over social media via secondhand reports of what he said.

The statement in response from CBS: “Mr. De Niro’s comments were unscripted and unexpected. The offensive language was deleted from the broadcast.”

Of course, live feeds for the press still aired De Niro’s statements in full. Here it is, then, for your education: