Watch: Disney CEO Bob Chapek Issues Groveling Apology to Company LGBTQ Activists

Disney CEO Bob Chapek during an address at the Boston College Chief Executives Club, Monda
AP Photo/Charles Krupa
Paul Bois

Disney CEO Bob Chapek issued a groveling apology to LGBTQ activists in his company this week while promising to take urgent action to meet their needs.

Speaking at the company’s “Reimagine Tomorrow” summit, Chapek began by pledging “to be a better ally for the LGBTQ+ community” and apologized “for not being the ally that you needed me to be” while assuring that he is “committed to ensuring that our company lives up to its values.”

“I’ve read many emails that have been sent, spoken with LGBTQ employees and their allies, met with advocacy groups, and convene my own leadership team, and I have been taken by the honesty, the openness, and the urgency of their stories,” he said.

“I want you to know that your words have made a real impact on me,” he added. “I understand that we’ve made mistakes, and the pain of those mistakes have caused, and I know that our silence wasn’t just about the bill in Florida, but about every time an individual or institution that should’ve stood up for this community, did not.”

Chapek concluded that he and the Disney leadership team will work with the LGBTQIA+ Advisory Council and other groups to take the proper action.

“I am convening a meeting with all my direct reports and representatives of the Advisory Council to discuss the thoughtful suggestions that have been made,” he concluded. “But we know the moment requires urgency and words are not enough, so we are taking some actions right now.”

Chapek’s leaked apology comes on the same day that video showed a Disney executive saying the company has been “targeting Gen Z and millennials” with LGBTQIA2S+ content, and that her son told her, “Gen Z is 30 to 40 percent queerer than the other generations, mom, so Disney better get with it.”

“We were targeting a young, I think, more open-minded — and now we know, as my son texted me this morning: ‘Gen Z is 30 to 40 percent queerer than the other generations, mom, so Disney better get with it,’” the Disney executive said.
Another video showed executive producer Latoya Raveneau saying how she wants to “use [her] content” at Disney to help educate children about “the pockets of the LGBTQ community that you don’t see.”

“I identify as, like, a bi-romatic asexual,” Raveneau said. “I’ve had a lot of learning and growing about myself this year, kind of facilitated by how comfortable I felt on The Proud Family, and with my immediate team at Disney TVA.”

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