Former Disney CEO Michael Eisner appeared to take aim at Bob Iger and the Disney brass Friday as he railed against the decision to suspend Jimmy Kimmel.
“Where has all the leadership gone? If not for university presidents, law firm managing partners and corporate chief executives standing up against bullies, who then will step up for the first amendment?” Eisner wrote in a post on X on Friday.
Eisner called the decision to suspend Kimmel’s show “yet another example of out-of-control intimidation.”
He wrote, “The ‘suspending indefinitely’ of Jimmy Kimmel immediately after the Chairman of the FCC’s aggressive yet hollow threatening of the Disney Company is yet another example of out-of-control intimidation. Maybe the Constitution should have said, ‘Congress shall make no law abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press, except in one’s political or financial self-interest.’”
Eisner added, “By-the-way, for the record, this ex-CEO finds Jimmy Kimmel very talented and funny.”
Eisner ran Disney from 1984 to 2005, a period that saw the so-called “Disney renaissance,” when animated musicals like Beauty and the Beast, The Little Mermaid and The Lion King made a significant cultural impact and reigned at the box office. But Eisner famously was forced out of the company in a shareholder rebellion that cleared the way for Iger’s leadership following a colorful and tempestuous final few years at the top that were chronicled in books like DisneyWar and The Keys to the Kingdom: How Michael Eisner Lost His Grip.
For a time, Eisner was synonymous with the Disney brand — he once even hosted The Wonderful World of Disney show — and his criticism adds to the mounting unrest over Disney’s decision to suspend Kimmel over remarks made about the shooting of right-wing activist Charlie Kirk.
Several politicians and industry figures have spoken out in protest. And on Thursday Hollywood union members protested in front of the main gate to the Walt Disney Studios in Burbank, pushing back against what they saw as an infringement on free expression.
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