John Oliver Goes OFF on ‘Morally Bankrupt’ Disney CEO Bob Chapek Over Response to ‘Don’t Say Gay’ Bill

John Oliver did not hold back while addressing Disney CEO Bob Chapek’s response to the controversial Florida legislation that critics have dubbed the “Don’t Say Gay” bill.

Oliver explained that the bill, which passed last Tuesday, prohibits teachers and staff from having classroom instruction about sexual orientation or gender identity with students from kindergarten to third grade, and gives parents more access to their children’s education and health records.

While Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL) has pushed back on the label “Don’t Say Gay,” claiming it does not prohibit classroom discussion but that it bars teachers from instructing the topics.

“We’re going to make sure that parents are able to send their kid to kindergarten without having some of this stuff injected into their school curriculum,” DeSantis told press at Florida’s Strawberry Festival.

Oliver noted that the bill also limits “any instruction on these issues for grades four and above to what’s ‘age- or developmentally appropriate,’ without defining what that actually means.”

“And the worry is that teachers will feel they have to steer clear of those topics altogether, especially as the bill allows parents the right to sue if they think their children have received inappropriate lessons,” he continued. “And while you’ll hear idiots saying this bill is to prevent kindergarteners getting taught about sex, with Ron Desantis’s campaign arguing it’ll stop R-rated lessons about sexuality, the wording is much broader than that.”

After railing against the bill itself, Oliver went after one of the bill’s biggest donors: Disney.

“In the last two years, it’s given nearly $300,000 to DeSantis and the legislators that voted for this bill,” Oliver explained. “Now, are they morally bankrupt for doing that? Who’s to say? I’ll tell you. I am. I am to say.”

The host noted that because he played Zazu in the 2019 live-action version of The Lion King, he has earned his viewpoint on the topic.

“Disney employees were understandably outraged when this came to light, and Bob Chapek, Disney’s CEO and business thumb, then made things worse, putting out a statement defending Disney’s silence on the bill and listing a bunch of Disney projects like these saying all of our diverse stories are our corporate statements, and they are more powerful than any tweet or lobbying effort,” Oliver added.

Oliver went on to call Chapek’s reasoning “nonsense,” noting that while movies “can affect how people view the world,” Disney may not want to call attention to their questionable track record.

“But is this really a path you want to go down, Disney? Because you’re the same company that’s coded basically every villain in your movies as gay, stereotyped minorities to a breathtaking degree, and had something called a ‘wench auction’ in place at Disneyland until 2018,” he said. “So I don’t know that you’ve had a 100 percent net positive effect.”

Chapek did amend his statement in a shareholder call on Wednesday, finally expressing opposition to the bill, yet once it had already passed.

The CEO said that the company had originally planned to engage “directly with lawmakers on both sides of the aisle” to denounce the bill.

“Ultimately, we were unsuccessful,” he conceded.

In an email sent to staff on Friday, Chapek made a third response to the bill, this time announcing that Disney was pausing all political donations in Florida, pending a review.

Watch above, via YouTube.