Oh dear. It seems there is no love lost between Piers Morgan and Robert De Niro, after the television host has called for journalists to boycott interviews with the actor, following his latest spat with a writer for the Radio Times.
This is not the first time that Morgan has had an issue with De Niro. Back in 2012, whilst working on his CNN show in the US he described him as ‘a bloody nightmare’, and the experience as being ‘only one removed from interviewing a corpse’. Ouch!
In a scathing article for the Daily Mail on Tuesday, he was rather critical of the actor: “Robert De Niro is a magnificent actor… ‘The Godfather Part II’, ‘Taxi Driver’, ‘The Deer Hunter’, ‘Raging Bull’, ‘Once Upon A Time in America’, ‘Goodfellas’, ‘Casino’ – his thespian resumé is glowing from the plethora of gold and silver awards his work has earned him.
“But there’s a common theme to all those great movies: they were all made at least 20 years ago.
Let’s be honest, De Niro’s more recent contribution to the big screen has verged on diabolical, a travesty of his talent.
Piers Morgan has called for journalists to boycott interviews with Robert De Niro, following his latest spat with a writer for the Radio Times.
“From the inane ‘Meet The Fockers’ and unwatchable ‘Last Vegas’, to the meandering ‘Grudge Match’ and gloriously awful ‘New Year’s Eve’, this giant of the industry has stunk theatres out across the globe for the past two decades.
“Yet De Niro still behaves like he’s king of the hill, top of the heap, a number one.
“He’s renowned as the rudest, most difficult and frankly obnoxious star to interview, possibly in the history of Planet Earth.
“A man so consumed with his own sense of self-importance that even offering a modicum of consideration towards those charged with trying to help him promote his own movies is beyond him.”
These are rather harsh words indeed coming from Morgan, but on Tuesday, De Niro made the headlines after it emerged he’d walked out of in interview with the Radio Times while promoting new movie THE INTERN, over what he deemed ‘negative inference’ in the questions.
He was asked firstly how he avoided going into ‘auto-pilot’ on movie sets, and then what he thought about TriBeCa, the area of New York in which he hosts his annual film festival, being now mostly populated by wealthy bankers.
According to reports, the journalist, Emma Brockes, described a vivid scene of awkwardness, and branded the actor ‘condescending’ in his behaviour before he exit.
On hearing this news, Morgan has now called for a media boycott on the star from the world’s media: “Every journalist in the world should agree, with immediate effect, never to interview him again. Give the guy what he thinks he wants,” he writes.
“Only, I suspect it’s the very last thing De Niro wants. Because underneath all the pompous, arrogant rudeness lies a man still desperate for superstar status and all the trappings that brings.
“Robert De Niro needs us a lot more than we need him these days. He’s just too consumed with his own former genius to realise it.”
We don’t think that Piers Morgan held back on his thoughts too much in that article!
