Bradley Cooper has been banned from the NFL Network in a move Harvey Weinstein’s calling “censorship.”
The star of the Weinstein Company’s “Silver Linings Playbook,” with Jennifer Lawrence, was to headline tonight’s “Rich Eisen Thanksgiving Special” with co-star Chris Tucker. But after the segment was approved, and taped, the net was abruptly told on Wednesday by NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell’s office to scrap it.
The reason? That Robert De Niro’s character in the film is a part-time bookie. The decision has left host Eisen and his team scrambling harder than Mark Sanchez to re-edit the show. An NFL Media rep confirmed, “The segment was pulled because the movie included content related to gambling on NFL games.”
“This interview was planned for weeks,” countered a source. “The network requested the interview.”
Until yesterday, the segment was promoted online as the pigskin special’s top interview, with a picture of a smiling Cooper, Tucker and Eisen. It was replaced on Thanksgiving by a picture of Eisen and another guest, John Slattery.
Weinstein said, “We are deeply disappointed in the NFL’s decision, and we are quite frankly surprised. Pulling a pretaped interview with our stars is nothing short of censorship . . . [‘Silver Linings’] is not a film about gambling in the NFL. It’s a film about fathers and sons and football bonding a family together.”
He added that he’s a football fan and that his wife, Georgina Chapman, designs clothes for NFL charities and works pro bono.
Despite the NFL diss, the film has attracted league fans after screening for owners Steve Tisch and Woody Johnson. Player DeSean Jackson tweeted a photo with Cooper at a practice last week and made a video with Michael Vick about game-day superstitions inspired by De Niro’s Eagles-obsessed character.