Former Disney Staffers Fire Back at CEO Bob Iger’s ‘Evil’ Comments – Rolling Stone

Disney CEO Bob Iger angered members of the Writers Guild of America, the Screen Actors Guild, and, seemingly, half of Hollywood when he chided striking workers’ demands during an interview from the so-called “summer camp for billionaires.”  Particularly pissed were a number of writers and staffers who’ve worked on Disney programs who say they’re disheartened and confused why the centi-millionaire would think of their asks as “unrealistic” and “disruptive.”

“It’s the studios that have created this work stoppage. It’s their greed, it’s their refusal to pay people what they’re worth, and get everyone a fair deal that’s the problem,” says Ali Golub, who’s worked as an assistant on Disney programs. 

In an interview with CNBC at the Sun Valley Conference in Idaho, Iger said, “We managed, as an industry, to negotiate a very good deal with the directors guild that reflects the value that the directors contribute to this great business. We wanted to do the same thing with the writers, and we’d like to do the same thing with the actors… There’s a level of expectation that they have, that is just not realistic. And they are adding to the set of the challenges that this business is already facing that is, quite frankly, very disruptive.”

But former Disney staffers say the demands that Iger found to be so “unrealistic,” which include an increase in their minimum wages, residuals, and concerns over the use of artificial intelligence — are anything but.

“There comes a time when enough is enough. Those comments just went a little too far,” Chas, a writer for Disney who asked not to use his last name, says.

Representatives for Disney didn’t respond to Rolling Stone’s requests for comment.

Iger earns a reported salary of $27 million dollars if he reaches incentives for the company outlined in his contract. (His predecessor, Bob Chapek, made $56 million in the prior two years — and was fired for his efforts.)  Chas, on the other hand, worked for Disney on a salary so low, he depended on the company’s free lunches. 

Chas tweeted about his experience working as support staff in a Disney writers room on Thursday and how he struggled when the company took away their free lunches. According to Chas, when he worked as an assistant in a writers room for an animated show prior to the pandemic, he and the rest of the writers and assistants initially had their lunches paid for by the company. Then he was told there was a change in the budget and assistants making minimum wage salaries would no longer have their lunches supplied by Disney, yet it was still his job to take the writers’ lunch orders, pick them up, and distribute them.

Once the writers on his show caught wind of what was happening, Chas says they were outraged and took matters into their own hands by leaving him and the other assistants cash and gift cards so they could afford to buy lunch while on the job. While he was moved by the “outpouring of love and support” from the writers, Chas explains it was also difficult for him to accept the help of others when the solution could have been as simple as the multi-billion dollar company paying for assistants’ lunches.

“It felt like a catch-22 because it was a very appreciated gesture but it was a gesture that they shouldn’t have even been put into that situation to have to offer,” Chas says. “The truth of the matter is I was a grown man getting handouts. Some days I would cry while I was eating this food because it felt awful. It really was very dehumanizing and it just felt like, ‘Wow, I’m really not valued here.’”

Chas, who’s gone on to write for shows like ABC’s grown-ish, says as a writer he’s enjoyed working on Disney shows and projects; overall, he’s had positive experiences. But his time working as an assistant opened his eyes to the lack of financial respect and resources given to those who need it most. After opening up about his experience online, Chas’s tweet earned more than three million views and garnered a lot of responses from other writers who related to his struggle.

“Something I’ve noticed as a new member of the WGA is that so many of us were suffering in silence and kind of going through very similar experiences on our way up through the industry,” Chas maintains. “The strike has really sparked a lot of us to share our lived experiences and struggles as we fight to make our dreams happen and corporate greed continues to keep their feet on our necks.”

Thirty-year-old Sarah Khan ran into a similar issue when she was a writer’s assistant on a Disney show in 2020. Khan, who was 26 at the time, says she also was originally given free lunch by the company. But it was taken away because of “budgetary costs,” and she was still tasked with being the person to take everyone’s lunch orders, pick them up, and give them out to writers. According to Khan, in an effort to help out assistants the writers would take turns donating their lunch orders, telling the assistants to order whatever they wanted under the writers’ names so the company wouldn’t find out.

“Basically it was a secret that we were getting lunches from the writers,” Khan says. “I’m very thankful for them but it was also very dehumanizing and embarrassing.”

Khan “doesn’t understand” why Iger would tell writers that they’re being unrealistic in their demands to be fairly compensated when he makes the kind of salary he does, or why he would offer comments on the strike at all.

“There’s nothing right you can say coming from his position. He needs to fire his PR team,” Khan offers. “I don’t know how any CEO can get away with saying that. He’s a billionaire and he’s upset that assistants get lunch paid for? It’s just cruel, it’s inhumane, and it’s evil.”

James Earl, a 33-year-old TV writer who’s been working in the industry for nearly a decade, says Iger’s comments hit close to home for him since he spent most of his career working on Disney shows. 

“I think for me the big issue with this idea of what’s realistic and what we as writers should be asking for, is so much more than money,” Earl says. “For me, it’s about my footprint as an artist.”

Prior to Disney, Earl worked as support staff for Netflix, Warner Bros, and CBS and was even a writer’s assistant on CBS’ All Rise, which was reported as being a tumultuous writers room back in 2020 because of how showrunner Greg Spottiswood handled race and gender on the show. He tells Rolling Stone he was happy to leave the toxic environment and work under “some of the best showrunners in the safest environment” on a Disney+ series.

“That kind of warm environment felt very Disney, so some of the actions and comments that I’m seeing are just kind of counterintuitive to what I know of Disney and how great the writers rooms are, in my experience,” Earl claims. 

The Disney+ show that Earl and his colleagues spent years developing and creating was eventually removed from the streaming platform back in May. He says it’s disheartening that companies like Disney can decide to “just erase everything you’ve ever worked on.”

“Essentially, more than half of my career has been spent working on this particular project, and now it’s all gone. If someone were to call me and say, ‘Hey, what’s your resume? I want to see what you’ve worked on,’ it’s getting more difficult for me to do that because things are getting canceled left and right, mini rooms are happening, shows are never getting made, and now companies are just erasing entire, you know, multi seasons of a show.”

For Earl, this was at the root of his frustration with Iger’s comments. 

“We’re asking for our fair share and for our part in what brings in millions and billions of dollars, but we’re also asking to be respected as artists and to be given a shot and chance,” he says. “To just delete [the] show before it ever gets a chance to find an audience or connect with people is just really disheartening.”

According to Golub, the former Disney assistant, CEOs like Iger need to bear more responsibility for the strike and the current working conditions that have led writers and actors to this point. She believes people in the entertainment industry are “fed up” because of the major dichotomy between someone like Iger’s salary and her own.

“Why do CEOs have multiple homes and private jets and yachts when people can’t afford to go to the doctor and feed their families? How is that right?” she says. “The people at the top keep making more and more money and people at the bottom keep making less and less.” 

Iger didn’t just ignite a flame in striking writers and other Disney staffers. SAG-AFTRA President Fran Drescher also condemned Iger for his comments, telling Variety she “found them terribly repugnant and out of touch.”

“Positively tone-deaf. I don’t think it served him well,” she said. “If I were that company, I would lock him behind doors and never let him talk to anybody about this, because it’s so obvious that he has no clue as to what is really happening on the ground with hard-working people that don’t make anywhere near the salary he is making. High seven figures, eight figures, this is crazy money that they make, and they don’t care if they’re land barons of a medieval time.”

Disney CEO Bob Iger angered members of the Writers Guild of America, the Screen Actors Guild, and, seemingly, half of Hollywood when he chided striking workers’ demands during an interview from the so-called “summer camp for billionaires.”  Particularly pissed were a number of writers and staffers who’ve worked on Disney programs who say they’re disheartened and confused why the centi-millionaire would think of their asks as “unrealistic” and “disruptive.”

“It’s the studios that have created this work stoppage. It’s their greed, it’s their refusal to pay people what they’re worth, and get everyone a fair deal that’s the problem,” says Ali Golub, who’s worked as an assistant on Disney programs. 

In an interview with CNBC at the Sun Valley Conference in Idaho, Iger said, “We managed, as an industry, to negotiate a very good deal with the directors guild that reflects the value that the directors contribute to this great business. We wanted to do the same thing with the writers, and we’d like to do the same thing with the actors… There’s a level of expectation that they have, that is just not realistic. And they are adding to the set of the challenges that this business is already facing that is, quite frankly, very disruptive.”

But former Disney staffers say the demands that Iger found to be so “unrealistic,” which include an increase in their minimum wages, residuals, and concerns over the use of artificial intelligence — are anything but.

“There comes a time when enough is enough. Those comments just went a little too far,” Chas, a writer for Disney who asked not to use his last name, says.

Representatives for Disney didn’t respond to Rolling Stone’s requests for comment.

Iger earns a reported salary of $27 million dollars if he reaches incentives for the company outlined in his contract. (His predecessor, Bob Chapek, made $56 million in the prior two years — and was fired for his efforts.)  Chas, on the other hand, worked for Disney on a salary so low, he depended on the company’s free lunches. 

Chas tweeted about his experience working as support staff in a Disney writers room on Thursday and how he struggled when the company took away their free lunches. According to Chas, when he worked as an assistant in a writers room for an animated show prior to the pandemic, he and the rest of the writers and assistants initially had their lunches paid for by the company. Then he was told there was a change in the budget and assistants making minimum wage salaries would no longer have their lunches supplied by Disney, yet it was still his job to take the writers’ lunch orders, pick them up, and distribute them.

Once the writers on his show caught wind of what was happening, Chas says they were outraged and took matters into their own hands by leaving him and the other assistants cash and gift cards so they could afford to buy lunch while on the job. While he was moved by the “outpouring of love and support” from the writers, Chas explains it was also difficult for him to accept the help of others when the solution could have been as simple as the multi-billion dollar company paying for assistants’ lunches.

“It felt like a catch-22 because it was a very appreciated gesture but it was a gesture that they shouldn’t have even been put into that situation to have to offer,” Chas says. “The truth of the matter is I was a grown man getting handouts. Some days I would cry while I was eating this food because it felt awful. It really was very dehumanizing and it just felt like, ‘Wow, I’m really not valued here.’”

Chas, who’s gone on to write for shows like ABC’s grown-ish, says as a writer he’s enjoyed working on Disney shows and projects; overall, he’s had positive experiences. But his time working as an assistant opened his eyes to the lack of financial respect and resources given to those who need it most. After opening up about his experience online, Chas’s tweet earned more than three million views and garnered a lot of responses from other writers who related to his struggle.

“Something I’ve noticed as a new member of the WGA is that so many of us were suffering in silence and kind of going through very similar experiences on our way up through the industry,” Chas maintains. “The strike has really sparked a lot of us to share our lived experiences and struggles as we fight to make our dreams happen and corporate greed continues to keep their feet on our necks.”

Thirty-year-old Sarah Khan ran into a similar issue when she was a writer’s assistant on a Disney show in 2020. Khan, who was 26 at the time, says she also was originally given free lunch by the company. But it was taken away because of “budgetary costs,” and she was still tasked with being the person to take everyone’s lunch orders, pick them up, and give them out to writers. According to Khan, in an effort to help out assistants the writers would take turns donating their lunch orders, telling the assistants to order whatever they wanted under the writers’ names so the company wouldn’t find out.

“Basically it was a secret that we were getting lunches from the writers,” Khan says. “I’m very thankful for them but it was also very dehumanizing and embarrassing.”

Khan “doesn’t understand” why Iger would tell writers that they’re being unrealistic in their demands to be fairly compensated when he makes the kind of salary he does, or why he would offer comments on the strike at all.

“There’s nothing right you can say coming from his position. He needs to fire his PR team,” Khan offers. “I don’t know how any CEO can get away with saying that. He’s a billionaire and he’s upset that assistants get lunch paid for? It’s just cruel, it’s inhumane, and it’s evil.”

James Earl, a 33-year-old TV writer who’s been working in the industry for nearly a decade, says Iger’s comments hit close to home for him since he spent most of his career working on Disney shows. 

“I think for me the big issue with this idea of what’s realistic and what we as writers should be asking for, is so much more than money,” Earl says. “For me, it’s about my footprint as an artist.”

Prior to Disney, Earl worked as support staff for Netflix, Warner Bros, and CBS and was even a writer’s assistant on CBS’ All Rise, which was reported as being a tumultuous writers room back in 2020 because of how showrunner Greg Spottiswood handled race and gender on the show. He tells Rolling Stone he was happy to leave the toxic environment and work under “some of the best showrunners in the safest environment” on a Disney+ series.

“That kind of warm environment felt very Disney, so some of the actions and comments that I’m seeing are just kind of counterintuitive to what I know of Disney and how great the writers rooms are, in my experience,” Earl claims. 

The Disney+ show that Earl and his colleagues spent years developing and creating was eventually removed from the streaming platform back in May. He says it’s disheartening that companies like Disney can decide to “just erase everything you’ve ever worked on.”

“Essentially, more than half of my career has been spent working on this particular project, and now it’s all gone. If someone were to call me and say, ‘Hey, what’s your resume? I want to see what you’ve worked on,’ it’s getting more difficult for me to do that because things are getting canceled left and right, mini rooms are happening, shows are never getting made, and now companies are just erasing entire, you know, multi seasons of a show.”

For Earl, this was at the root of his frustration with Iger’s comments. 

“We’re asking for our fair share and for our part in what brings in millions and billions of dollars, but we’re also asking to be respected as artists and to be given a shot and chance,” he says. “To just delete [the] show before it ever gets a chance to find an audience or connect with people is just really disheartening.”

According to Golub, the former Disney assistant, CEOs like Iger need to bear more responsibility for the strike and the current working conditions that have led writers and actors to this point. She believes people in the entertainment industry are “fed up” because of the major dichotomy between someone like Iger’s salary and her own.

“Why do CEOs have multiple homes and private jets and yachts when people can’t afford to go to the doctor and feed their families? How is that right?” she says. “The people at the top keep making more and more money and people at the bottom keep making less and less.” 

Iger didn’t just ignite a flame in striking writers and other Disney staffers. SAG-AFTRA President Fran Drescher also condemned Iger for his comments, telling Variety she “found them terribly repugnant and out of touch.”

“Positively tone-deaf. I don’t think it served him well,” she said. “If I were that company, I would lock him behind doors and never let him talk to anybody about this, because it’s so obvious that he has no clue as to what is really happening on the ground with hard-working people that don’t make anywhere near the salary he is making. High seven figures, eight figures, this is crazy money that they make, and they don’t care if they’re land barons of a medieval time.”