Governor DeSantis Reveals WARNING He Gave Former Disney CEO Bob Chapek on “Don’t Say Gay” Controversy

Disney has been at the center of various controversies for quite some time now.

From the battle with Scarlett Johansson to a few different lawsuits related to Park Pass reservations and the battle with Florida Governor Ron DeSantis over Florida’s Parental Rights in Education bill (what critics called “Don’t Say Gay”). The battles continued with the dissolution of Disney’s Reedy Creek Improvement District (which has officially changed), but now we’ve got a peek into one of those situations and just how things reportedly proceeded.

On February 27th, 2023, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis signed the bill that officially marked the “end” of Disney’s Reedy Creek Improvement District. Though the District won’t be dissolved, it will be renamed, some of its powers will be changed, and (most importantly) Disney will no longer be able to select the members of the Board of Supervisors. Instead, the Board will be selected solely by the Florida Governor and confirmed by the Florida Senate.

Governor DeSantis called it the end of the “corporate kingdom.”

Many had suggested that the bill that initially set up the dissolution of the RCID was an act of retaliation against Disney for its comments in opposition to the “Don’t Say Gay” bill. DeSantis seemed to touch on that that during the media event held for the signing of the bill that’ll change Reedy Creek.

DeSantis shared, “We had a little bit of a tussle last year over school legislation…If you’re going that way as a corporation, those are not the values we want to promote in the state of Florida.” He also discussed Disney being treated differently than other companies, and said, “we believed being joined at the hip with this one California-based company was not sustainable.”

But just what happened behind the scenes with DeSantis and Disney over “Don’t Say Gay?” Well, now we have some details, according to DeSantis himself. According to Fox News, DeSantis’ new book (“The Courage to be Free: Florida’s Blueprint for American Revival”) has a chapter that discusses the passage of “Don’t Say Gay.”

In the book, Desantis details the following: “As the controversy over the Parental Rights in Education bill was coming to a head, Chapek called me. He did not want Disney to get involved, but he was getting a lot of pressure to weigh in against the bill.”

Chapek’s desire for Disney not to get involved in the situation is well known. In fact, Chapek initially refused to have Disney make a statement on the matter. He claimed that “corporate statements do very little to change outcomes or minds. Instead, they are often weaponized by one side or the other to further divide and inflame.”

But Disney did face intense pressure from all kinds of individuals, including employees within the Company, regarding its response to the bill. Reportedly, when Chapek called DeSantis about facing this pressure, Chapek said, “We get pressured all the time…But this time is different. I haven’t seen anything like this before.”

DeSantis reportedly warned Chapek that if Disney were to get involved, “People like me [meaning DeSantis] will say, ‘Gee, how come Disney has never said anything about China, where they make a fortune?’”

If Disney, on the other hand, stayed out of the matter, DeSantis reportedly told Chapek that once the bill was passed, Disney would get “another 48 hours of outrage, mostly online…Then there will be some new outrage that the woke mob will focus on and people will forget about this issue.“

Ultimately, Chapek did change his mind and Disney issued a statement against the bill, stating that it would work toward its repeal. Following this statement, legislators revealed plans to dissolve the Reedy Creek District.

DeSantis wrote, “Behind the scenes, I was not, as a father of children ages five, four, and two, comfortable with the continuation of Disney’s special arrangement…While the Walt Disney Company and its executives had a right to indulge in woke activism, Florida did not have to place the company on a pedestal while they do so—especially when the company’s activism impacted the rights of parents and the well-being of children.”

Ultimately, DeSantis and the Florida legislature then passed the law that would dissolve the RCID in June of 2023, and a subsequent law that will not dissolve the district but will strip Disney of some key powers related to it.

According to Fox, DeSantis argues that the lesson of this battle is that in an “environment of ‘woke capital’ where large companies employ their influence to advance left-wing political agendas, ‘old-guard corporate Republicanism is not up to the task at hand.'”

Since DeSantis signed the Reedy Creek bill into law, it has become effective and some big changes are on the way when it comes to the makeup of the Board for the District, though many of the District’s powers will remain the same. We’ll keep an eye out for more updates on this situation.