Meryl Streep has mocked Donald Trump for calling her an overrated actress.
The 67-year-old used her address when accepting the Hollywood Foreign Press Association’s (HFPA) Cecil B. DeMille award at the Golden Globes last month (Jan17) to air her disgust at Trump when he mocked a disabled reporter, Serge F Kovaleski, at a press conference.
Trump later took to Twitter after her speech went viral on social media, and furiously wrote, “Meryl Streep, one of the most over-rated (sic) actresses in Hollywood, doesn’t know me but attacked last night at the Golden Globes. She is a Hillary (Clinton) flunky who lost big.”
And Streep fought back yet again on Saturday (11Feb17), using her speech at the Human Rights Campaign’s 2017 Greater New York Gala Dinner to call out the president and his “catastrophic instinct to retaliate”.
“‘Evil prospers when good men do nothing’… ain’t that the truth,” she began. “We shouldn’t be surprised that fundamentalists, of all stripes, everywhere, are exercised and fuming. We shouldn’t be surprised that these profound changes come at a much steeper cost than it seems would lie true in the 20th century. We shouldn’t be surprised if not everyone is totally down with it.
“But if we live through this precarious moment… if his catastrophic instinct to retaliate doesn’t lead us to nuclear winter, we will have much to thank this president for because he will have woken us up to how fragile freedom really is,” Streep continued.
Just as she did during her powerful Golden Globes speech, Streep, didn’t mention Trump by name, but did acknowledge his claim she was a allegedly overrated.
“Yes, I am the most overrated, over-decorated, and currently, over-berated actress of my generation,” she joked. “But that is why you invited me here! Right?”
Streep was honoured on Saturday with the Human Rights Campaign’s Ally for Equality Award, which recognised her efforts to help the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans and Queer (LGBTQ) community.
