Bob Chapek says he is the reason Josh D’Amaro is running Disney. In his memoir, Behind the Castle Walls: My Thirty Years at the Happiest Place on Earth, the former chief executive writes that he pushed for D’Amaro’s promotion when few people at the company knew his name. “I consistently suggested the idea of promoting him,” Chapek writes. “He had been a relative unknown in the corporate hierarchy before I singled him out.”
The excerpts were first published by The New York Times, which obtained an advance copy ahead of the book’s September 29 release from Gallery Books. Chapek describes D’Amaro as a protégé and “the tip of my spear” during their years together in the parks division. A spokesman for D’Amaro declined to comment.
D’Amaro took over Chapek’s old job running the parks in 2020, when Chapek became chief executive. The board named D’Amaro Disney’s next CEO in February, and he took over from Bob Iger at the company’s annual meeting on March 18.
Chapek Blames Iger For His Ouster
The book lays his 2022 firing at Iger’s feet. Chapek writes that Iger told people in Hollywood that Chapek was shutting him out, and that Iger had “an intentional and preconceived role in abruptly ending my ride as Disney CEO.” Iger stayed on as executive chairman after handing Chapek the job in 2020.
“My abrupt dismissal hurt my reputation, leaving those close to me, outsiders and some within the kingdom trying to figure out what I did wrong,” Chapek writes. “The answer, again, is nothing.” He adds: “I didn’t get a chance to finish what I started. In truth, it pisses me off.”
He Stands By The Price Increases
Chapek remains unpopular with many fans for park changes made under him, including higher prices for food and annual passes, the end of the free airport shuttle at Walt Disney World and paid line-skipping in place of the free FastPass system. In the book, he stands by the push for more revenue. “We’d been, at a minimum, leaving revenue opportunities on the table to avoid stirring the hornet’s nest,” he writes.
What The Book Covers
Gallery Books, a division of Simon and Schuster, announced the memoir on August 12, billing it as Chapek’s first full account of his time as chief executive, from his appointment in 2020 through his dismissal in 2022. He had rarely discussed that tenure publicly since leaving the company.
Chapek joined Disney in 1993 in its home entertainment division and later ran consumer products and then the parks before he was named chief executive on February 25, 2020. Within weeks the pandemic shut down Disney’s theme parks, its cruise ships and the theaters carrying its films. The publisher’s summary says Chapek was left wondering whether he had become the scapegoat for all of it.
The board fired him on Sunday, November 20, 2022, and announced Iger’s return the same night. The publisher calls the memoir a story of “ambition, power, and the price of Disney magic.”
Iger Told His Side First
Iger got his version out first. A Financial Times piece in June had him pushing back on the long running claim that he undermined Chapek from the shadows, and the paper wrote that Iger now avoids saying Chapek’s name, calling him “my former successor” instead. The same article carried Iger’s account of brief merger talks with Apple that went nowhere and how close Disney came to buying Twitter.
Iger stays on as a senior advisor and board member until his retirement on December 31. Chapek, apart from a brief stint on the board of the medical technology company Masimo, has kept a low profile since leaving Disney. Iger published his own memoir, The Ride of a Lifetime, in 2019.
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