Former Disney CEO Michael Eisner slammed Bob Iger over Jimmy Kimmel’s suspension, asking Friday where the leaders who will stand up to the “bullies” and defend Americans’ right to freedom of speech have gone.
“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, who served as Disney’s CEO from 2005 to 2015, said in an X post Friday.
“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 went on. “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.’”
At the end of his message he noted that “by-the-way, for the record, this ex-CEO finds Jimmy Kimmel very talented and funny” — a jab at conservatives who continue to call Kimmel unfunny while making slights at his viewership.
Eisner is now the latest figure in media to speak out against Kimmel’s suspension. ABC moved to pause the late night host’s talk show on Wednesday after remarks he made about late conservative political activist Charlie Kirk, who was fatally shot during a college appearance in Utah on Sept. 10. Kimmel became the latest lat night host to come under fire this year after CBS canceled Stephen Colbert’s “The Late Show” after the host criticized his network’s parent company Paramount for its $16 million settlement with President Donald Trump.
Along with Eisner, late night colleagues and other industry figures took to social media to air their disappointment in Disney and Iger, calling the CEO out for “cowardice,” and pointing out Trump is seemingly abusing his powers as president by censoring those who criticize him.
On Thursday, hundreds of union actors and writers marched on the Walt Disney Company’s Burbank headquarters and outside Kimmel’s theater in Hollywood to protest ABC.
Despite backlash, FCC Chairman Brendan Carr continued to issue threats to talk shows, most recently targeting “The View” by saying the daytime talk show may no longer be exempt from the commission’s equal opportunity broadcast rules.
