Wait, Hollywood Is Defending Free Speech … Now?

Free speech has taken a beating in recent years, both here and abroad.

The Twitter Files. Team Biden weaponizing U.S. intelligence to suppress the Hunter Biden laptop story. Parents targeted by the FBI for daring to criticize local school board decisions.

“Wrong” opinions on COVID-19 censored by Big Tech platforms. And the problem is worse overseas.

‘I had to rely on a relative in America to tell me what was going on in England’

Posts on X have been censored under the Online Safety Act, including posts about single sex spaces, Katie Lam MP talking about grooming gangs, and videos of arrests being made.@BenBarryJones pic.twitter.com/oGir8igUNp

— The Free Speech Union (@SpeechUnion) July 29, 2025

In Germany, if you post a meme on social media that far-left criminals don’t like, police will search your house and confiscate everything. Free speech in Europe no longer exists, JD Vance is right. pic.twitter.com/lfhY3EyNrH

— RadioGenoa (@RadioGenoa) July 26, 2025

The problem infested the creative community, too.

• Cancel Culture run amok
• Comedians censored by social media giants
• Woke bylaws
• Sensitivity readers
• Classic tomes censored by woke scolds
• Self-censorship on steroids

Someone even wrote a book about it.

And, through it all, Hollywood stars remained mostly silent. They had every opportunity to defend speech, be it awards show galas, magazine interviews, social media accounts or podcast platforms.

Heck, they had every right to speak out. Free speech is the core of their livelihoods.

Yet they stood down. Time and again. Some took an active role in self-censorship.

The exceptions proved the rule, like when Tom Hanks attacked those eager to censor books for problematic phrases.

Along comes The Writers Guild of America to decry “the dangerous and escalating attacks on the First Amendment, independent media, and the free press.”

The source of the problem? President Donald Trump. Of course.

Among the signees of the WGA open letter are screenwriter Tony Gilroy (“Andor”) Spike Lee, “The Wire’s” David Simon, Oscar-winner Adam McKay, John Waters and Alfonso Cuarón (“Roma”).

Now we face an unprecedented, authoritarian assault. In the last few months alone, President Trump has filed baseless lawsuits against news organizations that have published stories he does not like and leveraged them into payoffs, most notably at Paramount, which settled a meritless lawsuit against 60 Minutes for $16 million.

We saw with our own eyes how CBS’s “60 Minutes” deceitfully edited Vice President Kamala Harris to make her sound articulate.

NEW: 60 Minutes edited out one of Kamala Harris’s rambles on the Russia/Ukraine war, clipped in a strong statement instead about Putin “sitting in Kyiv right now.”

Edited version:

Question: “Would you support the effort to expand NATO to include Ukraine?”

Answer: “Those are… pic.twitter.com/vKOQA0BQec

— Collin Rugg (@CollinRugg) February 5, 2025

He has retaliated against publications reporting factually on the White House and threatened broadcasters’ licenses. He regularly calls for the cancelation of news and entertainment television shows that criticize him in late-night and, most recently, The View.

President Trump has done some of that, to his shame. It’s Tweets and bluster, and he’s proved over one-plus terms in office that he doesn’t follow it up with action.

Thank goodness. It’s dramatically less than what his predecessor did, and Hollywood, Inc. didn’t say boo about any of it.

Not. One. Syllable.

The Obama administration may have aggressively targeted journalist Sharyl Attkisson, a story that never seems to make it into the daily headlines.

Then again, Biden targeted conservatives, and their free speech rights don’t matter to most Hollywood dwellers. Just ask the victims of the new Hollywood Blacklist.

The Hollywood Blacklist 2.0 has pummeled conservatives stars for year after year

Just ask @ksorbs @RealJamesWoods and MANY more talented artists

Please show me the Peter Bart column savaging that reality.

I’ll wait. https://t.co/N6kmmx16YV

— Christian Toto (@HollywoodInToto) January 31, 2025

More WGA “evidence?” The Trump-led GOP defunded the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, a far-Left outfit that no longer meets the needs of 21st-century America.

And Trump played a role in canceling “The Late Show” with Stephen Colbert even though multiple insider reports have uncovered nothing of the kind. Plus, CBS was losing $40 million a year by keeping the show on the air.

Isn’t that the real issue?

We don’t have a king, we have a president. And the president doesn’t get to pick what’s on television, in movie theaters, on stage, on our bookshelves, or in the news.

Hypocrites. All of them. Frauds.

McKay’s name is a curious addition to the list. Why? He funds radical eco-warriors who attack priceless works of art.

Literally.

It’s odd that the assembled scribes, in addition to their previous silence, haven’t defended Jewish artists being canceled for their religious beliefs.

Like this:

My show tonight at the Stardome in Alabama was CANCELLED.
I did not cancel. I would never cancel—especially since I’m already here in Birmingham, ready to perform.
It was shut down because of protests and threats over my support for Israel and for speaking up about the 50… pic.twitter.com/5XyV9Qtkkv

— MichaelRapaport (@MichaelRapaport) August 5, 2025

Maybe they’ll get around to it in their next open letter attacking Trump.

Don’t hold your breath.