Hollywood megastar Robert De Niro got a standing ovation at the Tony Awards for using an expletive to condemn US President Donald Trump.
The Oscar-winning De Niro, 74, was at the annual event for the top US theatre awards late Sunday to announce an award for rock legend Bruce Springsteen.
“I’m going to say one thing – f*** Trump!” he said, pumping his fists in the air.
The crowd at New York’s Radio City Music Hall began cheering, then gave him a standing ovation.
“It’s no longer ‘down with Trump’, it’s ‘f*** Trump’!” he said.
The CBS television network, which was broadcasting the event live but with a delay of a few seconds, scrambled to bleep out De Niro’s expletive.
“Mr De Niro’s comments were unscripted and unexpected,” CBS said in a statement.
“The offensive language was deleted from the broadcast.”
The actor urged the crowd to vote in the November midterm elections and praised Springsteen for the singer’s political activism.
It was hardly the first time that De Niro, who was born in New York and lives in the city, attacked fellow New Yorker Trump. A noted liberal, De Niro, has been increasingly critical of Trump, a Republican, at smaller showbusiness events, but none have the high profile and audience of the Tony Awards.
In 2016, when Trump was the Republican presidential candidate, De Niro slammed him as “blatantly stupid,” “totally nuts,” and an “idiot.”
In response to a Trump statement about handling protesters at one of his rallies, De Niro said: “He wants to punch people in the face? I’d like to punch him in the face!”
And at a 2017 speech at Brown University he described the Trump administration as a “tragic, dumbass comedy.”
De Niro won Oscars for his roles in The Godfather: Part II (1974) and Raging Bull (1980).
