Fact Check

Robert De Niro 'Went Off' on Donald Trump

Actor Robert De Niro was supposed to record an ad for a nonpartisan voter campaign but went off script to lambaste Trump instead.

Published Oct. 10, 2016

 (Anonymous Content, screen capture)
Image Via Anonymous Content, screen capture
Claim:
Actor Robert De Niro blasted Donald Trump in a video meant to encourage people to vote.

Actor Robert De Niro was among the celebrities tapped to record a neutral message encouraging voters to go to the polls in the November 2016 presidential election, but he apparently went off script to blast the Republican nominee, Donald Trump.

The video was being produced by Anonymous Content (a Los Angeles-based media company) for the #VoteYourFuture campaign, which features a series of videos with celebrities urging people to vote. Each celebrity is filmed answering the question, "What do you care about?"

DeNiro strayed from the nonpartisan theme and launched into a tirade against Trump with an invective stream including  "punk," "pig," "con," "bozo" and an "embarrassment to this country":

It makes me so angry that this country has gotten to this point that this fool, this bozo, has wound up where he has. He talks how he wants to punch people in the face? Well, I'd like to punch him in the face. This is somebody that we want for president? I don't think so. What I care about is the direction of this country, and what I'm very, very worried about is that it might go in the wrong direction with someone like Donald Trump. If you care about your future, vote for it.

A representative from Anonymous Content confirmed that the DeNiro video was deemed unsuitable for inclusion in the campaign because of its partisan content:

The producers felt that they could not include Robert De Niro’s film as part of the campaign and still honor the non-partisan nature, but still believed that this video needed to be shared in some capacity.

The video did see the light of day, regardless. It was given to the Megyn Kelly-hosted Fox News program, "The Kelly File," which claimed to have exclusive access to it when they posted it on 8 October 2016.

The full video can be viewed here:

Bethania Palma is a journalist from the Los Angeles area who has been working in the news industry since 2006.