Bob Chapek Is So Not Over Getting Fired From Disney
In his first interview since being ousted as CEO, Chapek speaks about his rocky tenure and blames Bob Iger
Bob Chapek says he never had a chance.
In his first on-the-record interview since being fired as chief executive of Disney DIS -0.35%decrease; down pointing triangle in late 2022 after 33 tumultuous months, Chapek said his predecessor-turned-successor Bob Iger relentlessly campaigned to undermine him and eventually take back the crown.
“I think it’s actually amazing it took three years, versus that it happened at all,” the 67-year-old said from his home in the Florida Keys.
Chapek lays it all out in his memoir, “Behind the Castle Walls,” which Gallery Books will publish next week. It charts his early life and career and his nearly 30 years at Disney, during which he rose from a director of home-video marketing to lead home video, film distribution, consumer products and theme parks, before becoming CEO in 2020.
Iger referred questions to a Disney spokesman, who declined to comment.
Why do you think Bob Iger retired in February of 2020 and tapped you to succeed him?
What he told everybody inside the company was that he was tired of the administrative part of the job. He hated earnings calls. He hated five-year plans. There was also a lot of complaining about his compensation, that it was inadequate relative to others in the industry.
But I have had plenty of people suggest to me that there was a small group of people that knew Covid was coming before the rest of the world. And certainly, given the magnitude of what was about to happen, the idea of laying off or furloughing 110,000 people was not consistent with what some people would want their public image to be.
I don’t have any reason to know whether that’s true or not true. [Iger told the New York Times in 2020 that there were no hidden reasons for his retirement.]
Chapek writes that Iger’s demeanor during a joint CNBC interview that the two men did the day of the CEO transition was “ice cold,” “angry” and “miserable.” That April, New York Times columnist Ben Smith reported that Iger, who was still executive chairman, had reasserted control of Disney because of Covid-19. Iger told Smith that the pandemic necessitated his “actively helping Bob [Chapek] and the company contend with it.”
Given what you know now, do you think there was a scenario where you wouldn’t have been fired?
I think the outcome was inevitable. And if the cues I got from the opening press conference weren’t enough, when he did the interview with Ben Smith where he essentially reasserted himself as CEO—that was as big a sign as possible of an attempt to undermine me.
Disney Co. executives Bob Chapek and Bob Iger deliver remarks at the Walt Disney World 50th anniversary rededication ceremony.
Chapek with Bob Iger at an event marking the 50th anniversary of Walt Disney World in 2021. Joe Burbank/Orlando Sentinel/TNS/Zuma Press
You say in the book, you found out about that column during a party with your family and friends celebrating your becoming CEO?
I was literally drinking wine, thinking about the future, and I get a message from somebody who had read that article. I couldn’t believe it.
Is there anything you regret from your time as CEO?
I made a mistake when I got the job of taking advice from key members of the board that [Iger] should stay an active member of management with the creative product. It kept him in a position where he could engage with anybody on any subject at any time. I didn’t realize how insidious that was.
There were meetings being held on things that were clearly on my side of the line, but he was giving direction.
Like what?
That was the case with “Black Widow.”
In July 2021, Scarlett Johansson sued Disney after it released her Marvel film “Black Widow” simultaneously in theaters and online, which she said breached her contract. The company responded with a statement calling her suit “especially sad and distressing in its callous disregard for the horrific and prolonged global effects of the Covid-19 pandemic.” The suit was eventually settled, but Disney’s statement is remembered in Hollywood as a public-relations disaster. Chapek said Disney’s head of corporate communications wrote the statement and Iger approved it.
Didn’t you have the power to weigh in?
“Bob Iger will run creative and talent.” I was warned several times to give him lots of room on that subject and, “You’ll get your chance to run it when he’s gone.”
Did you have an opinion?
I thought the company statement was very harsh. I thought bringing up the Covid situation and the theoretical insensitivity was, uh, nontraditional.
In March 2022, three months after Iger stepped down as executive chairman, Disney employees were in an uproar over a Florida bill prohibiting instruction on sexual orientation and gender identity in certain grade levels at schools. Iger posted that the “Don’t Say Gay” bill, as it was described by opponents, would “put vulnerable, young LGBTQ people in jeopardy.” Chapek initially said corporate statements against legislation were counterproductive. Four days later, he apologized, pledged to be a better ally to the LGBTQ+ community, and said Disney would pause political giving in the state.
Do you think apologizing for the initial statement was a mistake?
It was a mistake. I was pushed into it.
Who pushed you into doing that?
Powers bigger than me.
Can you be more specific?
No.
Is that because of legal concerns? Or because you don’t want to get caught up in another political controversy?
All of the above.
Did Iger’s statement have an effect on your ability to do your job?
A huge effect, because what it did is conveniently align him with the very people I was trying to win over, which was the creative community. Remember, I spent the first year and a half of my job doing Zoom calls. I couldn’t get out and establish relationships. He had them on speed dial.
If the first big cut was the New York Times, the second was the “Don’t Say Gay” tweet.
In June 2022, Disney’s board unanimously voted to extend Chapek’s contract for three years. That November, the company’s stock tumbled after its earnings report disclosed that streaming losses had hit a peak of $1.5 billion. Two weeks later, Chapek was out and Iger was back.
How do you explain what happened in five months?
More often than not, the earnings performance of the company exceeded Wall Street expectations. Then we had one quarter where all we did was push back peak losses on Disney+. It made a lot of headlines. It became the opportunity to make good on whatever [Iger] wanted. And there would not have been another opportunity because after that, I said that Disney+ would be profitable at a certain point in time and, guess what? It was.
Your critics have accused you of underplaying how bad the earnings miss was that quarter. They said you talked about parades at the parks and seemed oblivious.
Every single Disney earnings [call], we always add something fluffy for the fans. Of course that’s not as important as your financial performance. But for whatever reason, that becomes the data point for why I underestimated the magnitude of the miss, which then becomes the data point for my firing. It’s an absurdity.
How would you like your time as CEO to be remembered, besides the Bob Iger drama?
As the guy who came in at the most difficult time in the company’s history and did an admirable and stellar job of saving it from what was very possibly its demise due to two years of no revenue combined with enormous debt from the Fox acquisition at a time where there was a lot of social unrest. For three years, I positioned the company for success and that made it a lot easier for someone else to step in, once the dust had settled.
Have you gone to Disney World since you left the job? Do you think you ever would again?
No.
That’s sad, right?
Very sad. It was a part of my life even before I joined the company. But I feel so let down, so disillusioned. Never say never, but I don’t think the effort to erase my time as CEO is very consistent with me wanting to go back on “It’s a Small World.”