New Delhi: An old video of Hollywood actor Robert De Niro swearing at US President Donald Trump is viral with a false claim that the incident is from the recent 2025 Oscar awards ceremony.
The 97th edition of the Academy awards (Oscars) was held in Los Angeles on 3 March, 2025. Trump has faced criticism at the Oscars over the years from several Hollywood celebrities over his policies, including at the recent edition, when host Conan O’Brien indirectly called him out for his recent spat with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
The 81-year-old De Niro, a two-time Academy Award winner, has been a vocal critic of Trump for years, even calling him a ‘total monster’ in March 2024.
In the viral video which is being shared on Facebook and X, De Niro exclaims, “I am going to say one thing, f**k Trump!”
The video is being shared with the caption, “Actor De Niro first statement before his speech at the Oscars”.
Click here to view, and here for an archive.
BOOM found that the incident in the viral video is from the 2018 edition of the Tony Awards held in New York, US.
The Tony Awards—formally known as the Antoinette Perry Award for Excellence in Broadway Theatre—are essentially the New York theatre industry’s equivalent of the Academy Awards.
We ran a keyword search and found a 2018 article by The Guardian with the headline, “Robert De Niro wins ovation for ‘F**k Trump’ speech at the Tony awards”. The article from 11 June, 2018, also has the same viral video.
According to The Guardian report, “As the applauding audience rose to their feet, De Niro continued: “It’s no longer down with Trump. It’s f**k Trump.” It further adds, “Although the show was broadcast as-live, CBS had time to bleep out the f-word for TV audiences, thought to number around six million.”
The statement got De Niro resounding applause and a standing ovation from the audience which included several celebrities and actors.
A video of the 2018 incident can be seen below:
This story was originally published by Boom as part of the Shakti Collective. Apart from the headline, excerpt and introduction, this story has not been edited by ThePrint staff.
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