Robert De Niro wasn’t shouting at pro-Palestinian protesters in video

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In a video that went viral on X this week, Robert De Niro was seen yelling at a crowd in New York City.

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“This is not a movie,” De Niro bellows in the clip. “This is not a movie; this is real. Right now, you’ve got to listen. You’ve got to work. You’ve got to get your job done … That’s dangerous and they say they’re gonna do it again! Again! You don’t want that. You don’t want that. None of us want that. C’mon. Let’s all get serious.”

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With police cracking down on college protests over the Israel-Hamas war, social media users shared the clip claiming it was proof De Niro supports Israel in the conflict.

A caption added to one of the clips circulating made it seem as though the “it” De Niro was referring to was the Oct. 7 massacre by Hamas on Israel that caused the war.

The two-time Oscar winner was called a “pro-Israeli propagandist” and praised by some on social media for taking a “real-life stand for Israel.”

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“Renowned actor Robert De Niro recently confronted pro-Palestinian protesters in New York City, expressing his support for Israel and criticizing the protesters’ actions,” X user @ImtiazMadmood wrote.

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“Robert De Niro standing up to the Hamas supporting rabble protesting,” GB News broadcaster Darren Grimes added on X. “He’s had enough. We’ve all had enough.”

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But Stan Rosenfield, a representative for De Niro, told USA Today that the viral clip stems from a scene on the actor’s upcoming Netflix show and his lines were misconstrued on social media.

“De Niro’s lines were 100% scripted,” said the rep. “The video was a small snippet from a rehearsal scene from the Netflix series Zero Day which was being filmed on the streets of New York, April 27, where the character played by De Niro is confronting a group (all paid extras).”

Rosenfield added, “Someone copied the post and fabricated an entirely different and bogus meaning.”

Netflix also confirmed that De Niro’s rant was from the series and in no way related to the Israel-Hamas war.

“This is a rehearsal for a scene for a Netflix series that was shot on Saturday, April 27,” the streamer told the Associated Press, referring to the video that appeared on X. “It was part of a production.”

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Mozhan Navabi, one of the actors on Zero Day, also shot down claims that De Niro was weighing in on the conflict and chastised social media users for falsely trying to attach a political opinion to the Hollywood star.

“Robert De Niro is giving a speech as his character in the upcoming Netflix show Zero Day,” Navabi wrote on X. “I’m also in it, and when I saw the clip, I recognized the speech. It’s fiction. Please verify before you publish.”

Israeli newspaper Haaretz, which ran the headline, “Watch as Robert De Niro confronts pro-Palestinian protesters in New York,” was forced to remove the article from their website. The editor in chief of Haaretz told CNN in a statement, “We ran a piece that was inadequately vetted in terms of sourcing and did not meet our editorial standards. We took the piece down soon after it ran.”

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