Bob Chapek Says Bob Iger Pushed Him Out of Disney — and Wants the Record to Show It

Bob Chapek spent nearly three years running Disney before Bob Iger pushed him out. Now Chapek says Iger was the “real reason” he lost the job — and he wants the record to show it. His memoir, Behind the Castle Walls, is set to be released Sept. 29, and Chapek tells Variety he believes Iger could not bear to give up the CEO title.

“I’d never expected to endure a drawn-out, purposeful undoing of my leadership,” Chapek writes. He claims Iger “seemed to initiate a relentless three-year campaign to push me out.”

Chapek’s Case Against Iger

Chapek’s book runs 272 pages, and Iger is mentioned 121 times. The former CEO says he did “nothing” wrong to justify his dismissal. When asked if he made no mistakes, he hedged: “No one is infallible. No one’s going to go through almost a three-year tenure as CEO and not make a mistake, but I don’t think that was causal in any way to the act [of Chapek’s termination].”

Soon after leaving Disney, he was approached to write the book, though he waited for distance to bring clarity before agreeing. “With distance and time comes a little bit of clarity, and I would lose whatever emotion I had over the situation and be able to, at the right time, respond appropriately with facts as opposed to emotions,” he explained.

What He Says Iger Did Wrong

Iger’s intent is proven by a single moment, according to Chapek: the April 2020 New York Times article that reported he was “reasserting control” at Disney. The piece quoted an email from Iger himself, which read, “A crisis of this magnitude, and its impact on Disney, would necessarily result in my actively helping Bob [Chapek] and the company contend with it, particularly since I ran the company for 15 years!”.

Chapek says that article foreshadowed Iger’s plan. He also recalls Iger’s tension at the first announcement of his appointment. “If you’re going to point to something, I think there was some resentment [on Iger’s part] from the very first announcement when we sat together and he looked very tense and uncomfortable,” he told Variety.

The Handshake at Sun Valley

Since Chapek departed, he has had no conversation with Iger. The two men met face-to-face at Sun Valley, the gathering of business leaders held in Idaho, in July 2022, where they briefly exchanged greetings.

“Oh yeah, I shook his hand. He was speaking with a group of people on one of the walkways, and I saw him there and shook his hand, said hello. We had a brief exchange, very brief, and I moved on, and he moved on,” Chapek said.

What He Thinks People Get Wrong

The Florida “Don’t Say Gay” controversy, the “Black Widow” controversy involving Scarlett Johansson, and the one quarter’s poor market performance. He argues those were difficult times for everyone, citing the pandemic and the company’s recent acquisition of Fox are what most people think defined Chapek’s time as CEO, he says. He disagrees with that framing entirely.

The speaker described a situation where the company was facing several simultaneous crises. “We’re in the middle of COVID, by the way, and we had just acquired Fox with the enormous tens of billions of dollars of debt,” he said, adding that this meant the company had no revenue streams. It also meant it had to pay off its debt, take on more loans, and essentially shut down operations. On top of that, he said the company had to carry out the unpopular task of furloughing 110,000 people while also dealing with social controversies and internal disagreements among employees.

Chapek on the New CEO

Chapek worked alongside Josh D’Amaro for many years at the parks division. He calls D’, an executive whose combination of business savvy and personal charm made him an excellent partner.

“Josh is an excellent executive. Josh has a very nice combination of business savvy and business acumen, and he’s also very personable guy. He was on my succession list basically the whole time I was in parks and as CEO. So I think he’s I think he’s the right guy, and I wish him well,” Chapek said.

The Bottom Line

The memoir reads as if its author were still processing being fired. He attributes the desire for his position back to Iger, declines to take legal action, and speaks well of his replacement while recounting the circumstances that led to his departure. The book’s release will probably reopen old wounds, but Chapek has signaled he is finished contesting — he simply wants the public record to match his account.

The book is set to be released Sept. 29.

Source material: “Bob Chapek Still Feels ‘Let Down’ by Bob Iger and Disney: ‘They’ve Attempted to Erase Me’,” Variety.

Bob Chapek · Bob Iger · CEO · Disney · memoir