EXCLUSIVE – Former “Sopranos” star Drea de Matteo is speaking out after certain celebrities poked fun at former President Trump’s assassination attempt last Saturday.
Trump survived an attempt on his life July 13 during a campaign speech in Butler, Pa., after a would-be assassin’s bullet grazed his right ear. He made his first public appearance since the shooting at last week’s Republican National Convention, sporting a bandage over his ear.
Some celebrities found the situation funny. Jack Black’s bandmate Kyle Gass joked at a concert in Australia that his birthday “wish” was for the shooter to not miss Trump next time. Black has since said he was “blindsided” by the comments and canceled the Tenacious D tour. Gass also issued an apology on Instagram, before later deleting the post.
“Star Wars” actor Mark Hamill mocked the size of Trump’s bandage, “calling it ludicrously oversized.”
Matteo said she’s a huge fan of these actors and celebrities, but she’s disheartened by recent comments.
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Actor Jack Black’s bandmate said his birthday wish was for a shooter to not “miss” Trump, after a shooter attempted to assassinate the former president last weekend. (Getty Images)
“Everybody has their right to their opinion, and they have freedom of speech, so here we are,” she told Fox News Digital. “But, again, I’m a liberal. I am a liberal who does not understand how the left has become so rebellious, with not one undertone of peace, love, harmony and compassion. You’re supposed to be the party of inclusivity, of love, of peace. And all of a sudden, these are the rioters. These are the mean-spirited folks out there. And I don’t understand that.”
As for Black’s bandmate Gass, Matteo said it wasn’t so much that she was opposed to him saying anything, but how “jarring” it was to hear the audience laugh, as well as some of the amused reactions in the U.S.
“To hear a portion of America be on board with death,” she said. “And that I don’t understand.”
“Of course it’s hateful rhetoric, but I do think that it goes way deeper than that,” Matteo said of last Saturday’s assassination attempt.
Matteo, an Emmy-winning actress, is known for her roles on “The Sopranos” and, later, “Sons of Anarchy.” Like so many progressives in Hollywood, Matteo said she was once a victim of “Trump Derangement Syndrome.” Then she did her own research.
“Say what you want about Trump, and I understand that a lot of people have Trump Derangement Syndrome,” she said. “I was one of them. But people can change. And it’s not that Trump changed, I changed. And I did my research, and I paid more attention to what was going on.”
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Matteo said her “rude awakening” came during the COVID-19 shutdowns and the mandates that came along with them.
“I definitely feel like a lot more truth is going to be on the conservative side right now,” she continued. “Because they want to conserve this country, and rightly so.”
Actors Michael Imperioli and Drea De Matteo in a scene from the HBO TV series “The Sopranos.” (Photo by Anthony Neste/Getty Images)
Matteo, who said she supports both Trump and independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr., has previously spoken out about the Hollywood treatment she’s received for not rallying behind Biden.
“[In the] Sopranos… even though we were critically acclaimed, we were the outcasts. I’m still an outcast. Here I am, they’re going to take me into the woods and shoot me for not endorsing Biden,” she said on “Jesse Watters Primetime” in June, referencing her character Adriana La Cerva’s violent end on the HBO series “The Sopranos.”
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“And all these celebrities going crazy destroying Trump’s character, I think it’s time for all these people to ask themselves why they’re so filled with rage?” de Matteo told Fox News Digital.
Asked whether she thinks there are “quiet” Trump voters in Hollywood, de Matteo said, “I think there’s a lot of them.” But she seemed to doubt that they’ll be more vocal, even in light of the last few weeks of political upheaval, because she said they’re still frightened.
Republican presidential candidate and former U.S. President Donald Trump reacts as multiple shots rang out during a campaign rally at the Butler Farm Show in Butler, Pennsylvania, U.S., July 13, 2024. (REUTERS/Brendan McDermid)
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“It’s sad for me to watch a lot of people still live in that sort of fear,” she said. “Because in the next six months, it’s not going to matter what side you’re on anymore … I think that the whole question of humanity, and the country’s karma, I think that’s really going to be the thing that’s going to either make or break us right now.”
Matteo, who runns her new clothing brand, Ultrafree, said she no longer describes herself as an actor, because she’s currently focused on other causes.
“I don’t care about working in Hollywood anymore,” she said. “I’d rather just talk about this and help more people to recognize that if you’re only going to vote about social issues like abortion, they’re missing the point. And that’s coming from a diehard liberal.”
Fox News’ Nikolas Lanum contributed to this report.