Robert De Niro Schools Jay-Z in Phone Etiquette

It’s never a good idea to get Robert De Niro angry with you, even if your name is Jay-Z and you happen to be one of the most successful artists of the day. The rapper got schooled by the actor for not returning his calls.

Page Six reports that the whole thing went down at Leonardo DiCaprio’s birthday just recently, when De Niro simply walked up to Jay and gave him a piece of his mind in front of everybody else in attendance.

According to eyewitness accounts, Robert would not back down even when he was told people were watching, or when Jay-Z’s wife Beyonce tried to intervene to cushion the (verbal) blow.

“Bob was sitting at a table, and when Jay-Z went over to say hello, De Niro told Jay that he never called him back,” an insider says for the mag.

“Bob wasn’t in any mood to make polite conversation. He told Jay that if somebody calls you six times, you call them back. It doesn’t matter who you are, that is just rude,” the insider goes on to say.

The rapper tried to joke his way out of the sticky situation but De Niro would simply not stop until he’d said what he wanted to say.

“De Niro kept telling him that he thinks he’s the man, but that he was disrespectful. Beyonce came over, but that didn’t calm Bob down,” says the tipster.

Another spy who also claims to have been at the party notes that rumors that the exchange was more than that (some accounts even say De Niro got so angry he actually scared the bejesus out of Jay) have been grossly exaggerated.

“It was a low-key private conversation between two people that was apparently overheard. It was not a heated discussion,” the source explains.