Michael Eisner, Disney’s former CEO who helmed the company for 21 years, has attacked executives at the entertainment giant for suspending Jimmy Kimmel’s show.
“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 on X. Eisner was Disney’s CEO from 1984 until 2005.
Eisner, 83, did not name the executive ultimately responsible, Bob Iger, Disney’s 74-year-old CEO, who made the decision with Dana Walden, co-chairman of Disney Entertainment with direct control over ABC television.
Eisner’s relationship with Iger, his successor to the Disney throne, had—until now—been cordial. He had backed Iger’s return as CEO in 2024 after the short-lived leadership of Bob Chapek hit the rocks and Iger orchestrated a boardroom coup.
But now, he’s lashing Kimmel’s suspension from his network show on ABC, which is owned by Disney.
“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,” he continued in his tweet. “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.’ By-the-way, for the record, this ex-CEO finds Jimmy Kimmel very talented and funny.”
Kimmel’s show Jimmy Kimmel Live! was pulled from the air on Wednesday, two days after he used his platform to accuse Republicans of “trying to score political points” off Charlie Kirk’s Sept. 10 assassination.
This decision also came on the same day that FCC Chairman Brendan Carr threatened to revoke ABC’s broadcasting license, stating that Kimmel was intentionally spreading misinformation about Kirk’s alleged killer Tyler Robinson being “MAGA or Republican motivated person.”
What Kimmel actually said was that MAGA was trying to distance itself from Robinson.
“We hit some new lows over the weekend with the MAGA gang desperately trying to characterize this kid who murdered Charlie Kirk as anything other than one of them and doing everything they can to score political points from it,” he said.
Since Kimmel’s suspension celebrities including best friend Jason Bateman and actor Mark Ruffalo have voiced their outrage.
Current and former late night hosts Seth Meyers, Jay Leno and David Letterman have all condemned the decision.
Former President Barack Obama even got involved, offering a lesson in free speech.
Eisner, who is speculated to be a partial inspiration for Lord Farquaad, is the most senior Disney figure to speak out. Other high-profile names to weigh in include former ESPN star Dan Le Batard, who condemned the move, saying it’s “dangerously close to state-run media.”
“Seeing Jimmy Kimmel not have the protection of something as powerful as Disney because corporate interests in media are filled with such cowardice that you have a situation where not even Bob Iger has the money or the power to stand up to the threat that is presently upon the shores of everyone in media because of how compromised they are by a series of mergers and money interests,” he said on his Thursday show.
“And to see Bob Iger show this kind of cowardice and bend the knee again, again with Trump, not the first time, because what happens here is once you’re a coward who’s extorted, the bully is going to keep extorting the coward,” he added.
On Thursday, Kimmel met with a top Disney executive to discuss a “resolution” to their “standoff.” Puck revealed Friday that the meeting was “cordial,” but Kimmel and Disney could not reach an agreement.
