Bob Chapek was fired as Disney’s chief executive in 2022 after less than three years in the job. A botched succession had metastasized into a corporate civil war.
Some of it was beyond his control, like Covid, which shut down its lucrative theme parks. Some of it was of his own making, like missteps with Wall Street and Disney’s bungled response to Florida’s “Don’t Say Gay” law.
But that is not how he explains his downfall.
In a memoir set to be published Tuesday by Gallery Books, Mr. Chapek rejects any personal responsibility for his ouster. He places all blame on a “relentless” sabotage campaign by the man who handpicked him for the job, his predecessor and eventual successor, Robert A. Iger.
“My abrupt dismissal hurt my reputation, leaving those close to me, outsiders and some within the kingdom trying to figure out what I did wrong,” Mr. Chapek writes. “The answer, again, is nothing.”
Mr. Chapek uses “Behind the Castle Walls: My Thirty Years at the Happiest Place on Earth,” a copy of which was obtained by The New York Times, to re-establish himself as a leader. He proudly embraces the mantle of “disrupter,” invoking the word or versions of it 30 times across 254 pages. He also seeks to reclaim a place in Disney history, writing that “my legacy wasn’t memorialized in a positive way.”
But Mr. Iger is the central preoccupation.
A spokesman for Mr. Iger declined to comment.
Here is what, specifically, Mr. Chapek claims that his former mentor did, along with some other things he wants readers to know.
He likens Mr. Iger to a ‘sniper’
The feud between the two Bobs is old news. Mr. Iger’s private criticism of his successor — and Mr. Chapek’s belief that Mr. Iger was undermining him — has been extensively reported.
But now Mr. Chapek is making the case himself, writing that Mr. Iger played “an intentional and preconceived role in abruptly ending my ride as Disney C.E.O.” Mr. Chapek says Mr. Iger disparaged him in private conversations, telling Hollywood power brokers and loyalists in the Disney ranks that he had shut Mr. Iger out and questioning his judgment over pandemic-era movie releases.
Mr. Chapek portrays Mr. Iger as manipulative and egotistic, someone who maneuvered to preserve his own authority after stepping down and then ultimately seized back the top job.
“I didn’t get a chance to finish what I started,” Mr. Chapek writes. “In truth, it pisses me off.”
He questions Mr. Iger’s abrupt exit
Mr. Iger shocked Hollywood in February 2020 when he abruptly stepped down after 15 years as chief executive. The speed has remained a lingering question.
Mr. Iger has said he was tired of aspects of the job, notably earnings calls. And he did not exactly disappear: He remained for two years as executive chairman, with oversight of creative matters.
But Mr. Chapek floats a more conspiratorial explanation. “I have been told by several high-ranking people both in government and private business that in their opinions, the real reason he left the company so abruptly was his anticipation of the arrival of Covid,” Mr. Chapek writes.
He offers no evidence. Mr. Chapek also suggests that Mr. Iger believed he could reclaim the job whenever he wanted. (Disney has previously denied that the Covid-19 pandemic had anything to do with Mr. Iger’s decision.)
He stands by squeezing more from the parks
While running Disney’s theme park division and, later, serving as chief executive, Mr. Chapek faced criticism that he had taken his drive for higher revenue too far. Under his watch, the company sharply raised prices for annual park passes and food, and began charging for things that had once been free, including access to shorter lines and parking at Disney hotels in Florida.
He offers no mea culpa.
Mr. Chapek proudly recounts bringing airline-style dynamic pricing to Disney’s parks and argues that higher prices helped reduce crowding and increase guest satisfaction. “We’d been, at a minimum, leaving revenue opportunities on the table to avoid stirring the hornet’s nest,” he writes, pointing to 18 percent compound annual profit growth during his tenure as parks chairman.
He takes credit for Disney’s newest C.E.O.
In February, Disney named a new chief executive: Josh D’Amaro, a company veteran who once worked for Mr. Chapek in theme parks. In Mr. Chapek’s telling, Mr. D’Amaro was a protégé, “the tip of my spear” in all that disrupting.
“I consistently suggested the idea of promoting him,” Mr. Chapek writes. “He had been a relative unknown in the corporate hierarchy before I singled him out.”
A spokesman for Mr. D’Amaro declined to comment.
He was always underestimated
Repeatedly, Mr. Chapek returns to his core identity — a “square” machinist’s son from Indiana who was underestimated by Hollywood insiders but saw business opportunities that they missed. Recounting his push in the 1990s for Disney to make direct-to-video animated sequels, he writes: “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.’”
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