New Details on Bob Chapek's Exit From Disney; The Board Was Reportedly Looking to Fire Him

The big and surprising news to come out of Disney this week was that Bob Iger returned to lead Disney as its CEO, replacing Bob Chapek.. Some new details have surfaced regarding what was going on behind the scenes with the Disney board and how how they were looking to fire Chapek for quite some time. It’s very obvious that they weren’t happy with him.

In a recent report from The Hollywood Reporter, the Disney board actually wanted to appoint one of their own members and offered it to Nike chairman Mark Parker, asking him to serve as an interim CEO while they looked for someone to permanently take on the role. He declined, though. General Motors executive Mary Barra also advocated replacing Chapek at a meeting back in June.

Chapek just didn’t end up being the leader they thought he would. He was dropping the ball all over the place and was never really embraced by the Disney fan community. When it came down to the actual process of letting Chapek go, a source described it as “insane.”

The source told the outlet: "He didn't get to say goodbye or say, 'I've decided to step down. I bet you it broke Chapek's firing of [Peter] Rice in seven minutes. They called [Chapek] and said, 'You're out. Our lawyers will call your lawyers.' No statement from him, no comment from him, no grace. It's f-cking insane."

Iger knew this was how things were going to go down from the very beginning. It’s explained that his “disapproval of Chapek was a secret to no one. He is said to have warned at a board meeting in December 2021 in New York, just before he left the company, that the culture of Disney could be transformed negatively and rapidly. It was the last time he spoke to Chapek.”

As for Iger, in the recent months leading up to this, he’s been working on a book and has been talking with producer Brian Grazer about a movie based on the book Lucky 666: The Impossible Mission that Changed the War in the Pacific. He was also in advanced talks for a key role at RedBird Capital before Disney asked him to come back.

Now he’s back at Disney, and he’s working on getting things back in order.