Robert De Niro picked the wrong guy to mess with when he went after James Woods in the middle of yet another one of his rants. The “Meet the Fockers” star was speaking at an event in New York, railing against conservatives in entertainment, when he turned his attention to Woods. De Niro called him “ignorant and uneducated” and claimed that Hollywood never really respected him in the first place.
It was the kind of line that would have ended the conversation for a lot of people. Woods is not a lot of people.
“I’m pretty sure I walked away from Hollywood on my own,” Woods said in response. “Bobby forgot it was the wokeness that made the place so unappealing.”
The comeback took off online within minutes.
Supporters pointed out that Woods has spent years saying he stepped back from the industry because he was tired of the politics, not because the work dried up. He has said in interviews that he felt pushed out of a town that once welcomed him, but that he ultimately made the choice to leave.
The two men have plenty of history. They worked together on Sergio Leone’s “Once Upon a Time in America,” a film many critics consider a classic, and both were at the top of their game in the 1980s and 1990s. These days, though, they sit on opposite sides of nearly every political fight.
De Niro has become one of the loudest anti-Trump voices in Hollywood, often using award shows and public appearances to slam the president and his supporters. Woods, on the other hand, has become a favorite of conservatives online, where his sharp posts regularly rack up huge numbers.
People who know both men say the jab about Woods being “uneducated” was especially odd. Woods famously attended MIT and has often been described as having an exceptionally high IQ.
“Of all the things to call James Woods, uneducated is a strange choice,” one longtime industry figure said. “You can disagree with him all day, but the guy is sharp.”
De Niro’s defenders argued that he was speaking out of frustration with the political climate and that his comments shouldn’t be taken too literally. Others said he has a habit of saying whatever comes to mind when he gets fired up, and that this was just the latest example.
Woods, for his part, didn’t seem particularly bothered. In a follow-up post, he said he still respects De Niro’s work from the old days and wished him well, before adding a final dig about how “some people never learn when to stop talking.”
The exchange has left many fans asking the same question they’ve asked before: when will they learn to stop messing with James Woods?