Robert De Niro's NYU Graduation Speech Was Honest

Graduation season is officially upon us, and with it comes a series of celebrities delivering commencement speeches at well-known educational institutions. As for the most creative example, I'd gladly hand over that honor to Jon Bon Jovi, who sang to Rutgers graduates instead of standing at the podium doling out traditional life and career advice. However, the award for the most honest speaker unequivocally goes to Robert De Niro, whose NYU commencement speech — in which he addressed the 2015 Tisch School of Arts graduates — was pretty much as honest and hilarious as it gets. The actor stuck to his generally no-holds-barred approach to life by refusing to sugarcoat the truth about post-grad life (aka "the real world") when he spoke — and by this I mean, specifically, he opened his speech by saying, "To Tisch graduates, you made it... and you're f**ked."

Now, this speech is coming from a guy who once publicly scolded Jay Z, so there’s no way he was about to let a crowd of eager graduates scare him away from giving them anything less than the whole truth. As De Niro tackled the usual topics of dealing with rejection, the pursuit of dreams, and achieving career successes, he left the graduates with some seriously hilarious, yet, blunt words of wisdom that aimed to prevent them from naively sauntering off into the land of independence, job searches, and school loan repayments.

Here are some serious truth bombs De Niro dropped throughout his 16-minute speech:

"The proud graduates of the New York School Of Law – they’re covered, and if they’re not, who cares? They’re lawyers."

Anyone who happens to object to this probably wouldn't say it to De Niro's face, therefore it stands as truth.

"The English majors? They’re not a factor. They’ll be home writing their novels."

Yes we are, Mr. De Niro. You speak nothing but the truth.

"Teachers? They’ll all be working. Sh*tty jobs, lousy pay — yeah, but still working."

Sadly, there are tons of teachers who can relate to De Niro's painful truth.

"When it comes to the arts, passion should always become common sense."

I see no lies here.

"Without the pain, what would we talk about?"

Precisely, De Niro. Spoken like a true artist.

"Listen to all of them, and listen to yourself."

Couldn't have said it better myself.

Watch De Niro's full commencement speech below:

Images: Giphy (7)