Streep renews harsh criticism of Trump

Meryl Streep says she's become a target since she spoke out against Donald Trump.

Meryl Streep accepting the Cecil B. DeMille Award

Meryl Streep says she's become a target since she spoke out against Donald Trump. (AAP)

In an emotional speech by turns tearful, defiant and humorous, Meryl Streep has doubled down on her harsh criticism of President Donald Trump, and spoke of having become a target since she first took him on in her Golden Globes speech in January.

Addressing a cheering audience at a fundraising gala for the Human Rights Campaign, a national LGBT group, Streep referred to Trump's tweet after her Globes speech, in which he called the celebrated actress "overrated."

"Yes, I am the most overrated, over-decorated and currently, I am the most over-berated actress ... of my generation," she said to laughs.

She noted that she wished she could simply stay home "and load the dishwasher" rather than take a podium to speak out - but that "the weight of all these honours" she's received in her career compelled her to speak out.

"It's terrifying to put the target on your forehead," she said. "And it sets you up for all sorts of attacks and armies of brownshirts and bots and worse, and the only way you can do it is if you feel you have to. You have to! You don't have an option. You have to."

Streep did not elaborate on the type of attacks she may have been subjected to since her Globes speech, or from whom.

Streep was receiving the group's National Ally for Equality Award, and was the huge draw of the evening.

Introduced by filmmaker Ken Burns, she took the stage to a thunderous ovation. After a humorous defense of her remarks in her Globes speech that football and martial arts weren't arts, which had drawn some criticism - she clarified that she indeed likes football, too - the actress praised the organisation for defending LGBT rights, and spoke about two teachers - one transgender, one gay - who had influenced her childhood in suburban New Jersey.

Turning to Trump, she said: "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."


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2 min read
Published 13 February 2017 1:00pm
Source: AAP


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