Ousted Disney CEO Bob Chapek is writing a tell-all memoir 'Behind the Castle Walls'
Bob Chapek wonders if he was Disney’s scapegoat in new memoir
Bob Chapek, fired as Disney’s CEO in 2022, is publishing a memoir called Behind the Castle Walls, releasing on September 29. This will be his first public account of the events that ousted him and brought Bob Iger back.
The other Bob is finally talking.
Bob Chapek, who ran Disney for about two years before the board fired him in 2022, is publishing a memoir.
It’s called Behind the Castle Walls: My Thirty Years at the Happiest Place on Earth. The book comes out September 29 from Simon & Schuster’s Gallery Books, and it’s the first time he’s publicly told his side of the story.
Co-written with Don Yaeger, the 272-page book covers Chapek’s whole three decades at Disney. But let’s be honest, no one is pre-ordering it for the story of his early years.
What Bob Chapek’s memoir covers
Bob Chapek is going to talk about how he went from new CEO to “scapegoat.”
The publisher says the book reveals “the high-stakes maneuverings that unraveled behind the scenes” from Chapek’s 2020 appointment to his 2022 dismissal. Chapek took over as CEO in February 2020, after being hand-picked by Bob Iger. Then the COVID-19 pandemic shut down Disney’s parks, cruises, and productions within weeks of getting the job.
Iger wouldn’t let Chapek handle things for a while.
What followed was two years of crises: the pandemic, a public clash with Florida over the “Don’t Say Gay” law, a public fight with Scarlett Johansson over Black Widow, and a compensation controversy that turned Disney’s own executives against him. In November 2022, the board pushed him out and brought Iger back.
Now one of the people pushing for Iger to return is the President of the Walt Disney Company, Dana Walden.
Here’s the line from the book’s own description that tells you the tone. Chapek was left “to wonder whether he had become the scapegoat in it all.”
That’s the thesis. Not “I made mistakes,” but “was I set up to take the fall.”
Which is what a lot of people have been saying for years. Especially after the New York Times expose.
Chapek says the deck was stacked from the start
Chapek’s grievance, hinted at across the book’s promotion, centers on the unusual arrangement he inherited.
When Iger stepped down as CEO, he didn’t actually leave. He stayed on as executive chairman, keeping control over Disney’s creative decisions. Chapek’s framing describes himself as a CEO who felt undermined from day one, running the company on paper while his predecessor kept a hand on the wheel.
Then, when Chapek hit rough waters, Bob Iger came back and replaced him. From Chapek’s chair, you can see how that looks less like a firing and more like a setup.
This is Chapek’s account of his own ouster, which does mean he will have some biases in perspective.
Disney’s board, in a 2023 filing, stated plainly that it “determined that Mr. Chapek was no longer the right person to serve in the CEO role.”
With this book, a reader gets one side. Bob Chapek’s side.
The book synopsis
In 1993, Bob Chapek began his career at the Walt Disney Company as the marketing director for home video. After twenty-seven years of hard work, climbing the corporate ladder, and garnering respect across the wide variety of businesses that Disney has, he earned the most coveted (and scrutinized) position of all: In 2020, he was named CEO of the Walt Disney Company.
Born and raised in small-town Indiana by a World War II–veteran father, Chapek learned early in life that grit, resilience, and curiosity can take you far. These values are what got him to Disney. However, within weeks of starting at the top, the COVID-19 pandemic shut down parks, resorts, cruise ships, live sporting events, and film and television production, forcing Chapek to steer the billion-dollar empire through unprecedented times. The stakes were high, the decisions unforgiving, and the backlash often inordinate, leaving him wondering whether he had become the corporate scapegoat of it all. In 2022, he got his answer—Chapek was out, Iger was back in.
Was he really given a fair shot or was he set up to fail? What drove his ousting and Bob Iger’s return? What happened behind the scenes at Disney during COVID, and how did those decisions impact what we see today? Four years later, after reflection and healing, Chapek is ready to tell his story, sharing what he hopes will be his true legacy.
Even now, after everything, he’s still a lifelong fan, and wants the magic of Disney to endure for generations.
The timing is almost ironic
Chapek’s tell-all book announcement arrives the same week his old rival Bob Iger made headlines for buying the Los Angeles Lakers in a $12.5 billion deal.
One Bob is buying a basketball dynasty; the other is publishing the book about how the first Bob took his job back. You couldn’t make this up if you tried.
And there’s a second book in play. Wall Street Journal reporter Robbie Whelan is writing an unauthorized Iger biography, and Disney has reportedly hired an attorney to push back against it. Some inside the company suspect Chapek may have been a source for that project. So this fall brings two books circling the same events from opposite directions, with Disney’s lawyers already involved in one of them.
Whether Behind the Castle Walls is a genuine reckoning or a well-timed image rehab depends entirely on what’s actually in it, and on how much Chapek is willing to name names. The publisher promises corporate intrigue. Disney presumably wishes it promised less.
I doubt we will get anything that will hurt the Walt Disney Company as Chapek has made it clear that he didn’t want to drag Mickey through the mud.
His book description even says, Chapek “wants the magic of Disney to endure for generations.”
Love him or hate him, that is still a classy attitude to have.
Article compiled with the help of the Pirates & Princesses newsroom.
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Hat Tips:
Deadline (August 12, 2026), the September 29 release date, the publisher, the “high-stakes maneuverings” blurb, and Chapek’s career background
Variety (August 12, 2026), the 272-page length, the “scapegoat” quote, and Disney’s 2023 filing on his removal
TheWrap (August 12, 2026), the Don Yaeger co-writing credit and the Iger/Thrive/Lakers connection
BlogMickey (August 12, 2026), the competing Robbie Whelan Iger biography and the reported Disney legal pushback