From Brent Lang and Matt Donnelly’s Variety story (filed on 11.28 at 10:18 am) about the attempted censoring of Robert DeNiro‘s speech at last night’s Gotham Awards:

“A source close to the film denied that there was any censorship involved and said that the incident was a miscommunication. There had been multiple versions of De Niro’s speech and there was a desire to focus solely on the moviemakers and their artistry, according to the source. Apple and the filmmakers were unaware that De Niro hadn’t signed off on the final draft, the insider added.”

Translation: “We [Apple] tried to politically sanitize DeNiro’s speech. In hindsight we realize we shouldn’t have done this, But to protect ourselves now, we’re going to deny everything and call it a miscommunication.”