Former Disney CEO Bob Chapek is accusing Bob Iger of sabotaging his brief run atop the House of Mouse — portraying his onetime mentor as a “sniper”.
Chapek writes in his forthcoming memoir that Iger had “an intentional and preconceived role in abruptly ending my ride as Disney CEO” — Iger handpicked Chapek to succeed him as top exec but came back to the job after Chapek got axed less than three years into the gig.
“I didn’t get a chance to finish what I started,” Chapek writes in “Behind the Castle Walls: My Thirty Years at the Happiest Place on Earth,” which is scheduled for release next Tuesday.
“In truth, it pisses me off.”
The notion that Iger worked behind the scenes to undermine his successor is hardly new.
Iger continued to wield extraordinary influence even after he stepped down as CEO and acted as a sounding board for Disney executives unhappy with Chapek, the Wall Street Journal reported in a post-mortem on Chapek’s 2022 ouster.
Now Chapek himself is putting the accusation on the record — and doing so in stark terms.
“I believe the real reason I got fired lay with Iger,” Chapek writes in an excerpt from the book.
He alleged that Iger — who again retired as Disney CEO earlier this year, paving the way for Josh D’Amaro to succeed him — began maneuvering to reclaim the top job almost immediately after stepping aside in 2020.
He also recounts being blindsided by an April 2020 New York Times report that portrayed Iger as effectively returning to run Disney as the COVID pandemic ravaged the company.
Chapek further alleges that Iger wielded his deep relationships with Disney directors, Hollywood producers and other power brokers to undercut his successor.
In another striking revelation, Chapek claims it was Iger who took the lead on Disney’s response to Scarlett Johansson’s explosive 2021 lawsuit over the streaming release of “Black Widow.”
Chapek writes that Iger approved the company’s blistering statement attacking Johansson’s suit — only for Chapek to absorb much of the resulting backlash in Hollywood.
Chapek even raises the incendiary theory that Iger may have stepped down on Feb. 25, 2020 because he anticipated the havoc COVID would wreak on Disney.
Within weeks, the pandemic slammed Disney’s theme parks, movie theaters and other businesses.
Chapek writes that several high-ranking figures in government and business later told him they believed Iger knew worldwide disruption was coming, while Chapek came to wonder whether he had been installed as a “sacrificial lamb” who would shoulder layoffs and other painful decisions while Iger preserved his legacy.
Chapek does not claim to have proof that was Iger’s motive.
His account is especially pointed because Disney’s board publicly backed him just months before firing him.
In June 2022, directors unanimously extended Chapek’s contract for another three years, praising his “strong leadership during the pandemic, business results, and transformation strategy.” He led Disney as it became embroiled in a feud over Florida’s so-called “Don’t Say Gay” law with Gov. Ron DeSantis.
Less than five months later, Disney’s streaming operation was hemorrhaging cash and investors punished the company after a disappointing earnings report.
Disney shares plunged 13% on Nov. 9, 2022, their worst one-day decline since 2001.
The board moved days later to bring back Iger.
Disney’s public announcement said Chapek “stepped down,” but an SEC filing was more explicit: The company said it “exercised its right to terminate without cause” his employment.
Chapek says he was not given the chance to leave on his own terms, writing that Disney “didn’t even give me the option of resigning.”
He also rejects the broader caricature of himself as an unimaginative operator who failed to understand Disney’s creative culture.
Chapek repeatedly casts himself in the book as a disruptor — a machinist’s son from Indiana who was underestimated by Hollywood insiders but willing to challenge the company’s sacred cows.
“It was Bob from flyover Indiana, educated at a state school, who disrupted the business and kept the studio afloat with an endeavor others had dismissed as ‘creative heresy,’” he writes of his earlier push into direct-to-video animated sequels.
For now, Chapek says he’ll never go back to Disney World, leaving him “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,’” he told the Journal.
The Post has sought comment from Iger. Disney declined to comment.
