Robert De Niro’s eyes glittered with a malignancy not witnessed since his gun-packing younger self stared at his reflection during the famous “you talkin’ to me?” scene in Taxi Driver. But rather than a mirror in a filthy apartment, De Niro was looking out at the great and good of the New York entertainment industry at this week’s Gotham Independent Film Awards at swish Cipriani Wall Street. “The beginning of my speech was edited, cut out, and I didn’t know about it,” he fumed. “And I want to read it.”

Monday night’s ceremony was supposed to be a victory lap for the 80-year-old actor. He was on stage to accept the Gotham Historical Icon and Creator Tribute awards, the latter on behalf of his new Martin Scorsese collaboration, Killers of the Flower Moon. However, he was outraged by the apparent removal from the teleprompter of searing comments about his bête noire, Donald Trump. As he read the speech and noticed, in real-time, the edits, his fury was uncontained. He quickly circled back to the lines he accused the event’s organisers, Apple and the Gotham Awards, of trying to censor.

The Telegraph London