Bob Chapek's Disney Memoir Arrives September 29, and the Publisher's Own Blurb Asks Whether He Was Set Up to Fail
The publisher is selling Bob Chapek's memoir on a question, and it is not a gentle one: "Was he really given a fair shot or was he set up to fail?"
Chapek, who joined Disney in 1993 as a home video marketing director and ran the Walt Disney Company from February 2020 until November 2022, has a book coming this fall. Behind the Castle Walls: My Thirty Years at the Happiest Place on Earth arrives September 29, 2026 from Gallery Books. It runs 272 pages, it is co-written with Don Yaeger, and WDW News Today lists it at $30. The news broke Wednesday afternoon, and WDWMagic, Blog Mickey and WDWNT all posted on it in the space of twenty five minutes.
What the publisher says is in it
The description Gallery Books is running with does not hedge. "For the first time ever, Bob Chapek breaks his silence on his tenure as the Walt Disney Company's CEO," it opens, before promising an insider's telling of a job that landed on him weeks ahead of a global pandemic. It closes by calling the book "a revealing and thrilling memoir of ambition, power, and corporate intrigue in the happiest company on earth."
In between, the blurb asks the two questions the whole thing is built on: "What drove his ousting and Bob Iger's return?" and the one above about a fair shot. It also frames the timing, saying that "Four years later, after reflection and healing, Chapek is ready to tell his story, sharing what he hopes will be his true legacy."
Per WDWMagic's summary of the publisher description, the book digs into his upbringing in small town Indiana and the influence of his World War II veteran father, the early weeks of his tenure as the pandemic hit, Disney's political fights in Florida, his removal, and Iger's return.
The Walt Disney World stretch the book has to answer for
Chapek held the job for just under three years, and plenty of what guests deal with at Walt Disney World now dates from that window, which is why a Burbank memoir is a park story. WDWMagic laid out the timeline alongside the announcement.
The board named Chapek chief executive on February 25, 2020, and Iger stayed on as Executive Chairman. Walt Disney World shut down a month later. Magic Kingdom and Animal Kingdom came back first, on July 11, 2020, with EPCOT and Disney's Hollywood Studios reopening four days after that.
WDWMagic frames Chapek's parks strategy as "one of the more debated parts of his leadership." FastPass had been free; its 2021 successor, Disney Genie+, was not. EPCOT projects including a Mary Poppins attraction and a Spaceship Earth overhaul went on hold around the same time.
WDWMagic calls Disney's handling of Florida's HB 1557 a defining moment of Chapek's tenure. Chapek took criticism for moving slowly at first, then suspended the company's political giving in Florida, and Disney went on to say publicly that the law should be repealed. Governor Ron DeSantis answered by signing legislation aimed at dissolving the Reedy Creek Improvement District, the independent special district Disney had controlled since 1967.
In June 2022 the board handed Chapek a contract extension. It fired him five months after that, on Sunday, November 20, 2022, and Iger returned to the job.
It lands with a rival Iger book already in the works
Blog Mickey points out that a second book about these same years is already underway: an unauthorized Iger biography by Robbie Whelan, a Wall Street Journal reporter. Per Blog Mickey, Disney has reportedly retained a lawyer to fight it, and some Disney insiders believe Chapek may have been one of Whelan's sources. Both of those are hedged, secondhand claims with no named source attached.
There is also a calendar wrinkle. Four days after the book announcement, on Sunday, August 16, Bob Iger is being inducted as a Disney Legend in the Leadership category at the Honda Center in Anaheim. Ryan Seacrest hosts, and the ceremony streams on Disney+.
Pre-orders are open now. Whether the book answers the questions its own publisher blurb poses is a September problem.
Sources
- WDWMagic, "Bob Chapek Book Announced: Former Disney CEO to Tell His Side of the Story in "Behind the Castle Walls""
- WDW News Today, "Behind the Castle Walls: Bob Chapek's Memoir About Disney Releasing This Year"
- Blog Mickey, "Former Disney CEO Bob Chapek To Release Tell-All Book 'Behind the Castle Walls'"
- ABC7 Los Angeles, "Disney unveils 2026 Legends: Bob Iger, Anne Hathaway and Dwayne Johnson among icons to be honored"
- Parks Magic, "Disney Is Streaming Its D23 Parks Showcase Live on Disney+ Saturday, and No Badge Is Required"
Image credits: Book jacket art by Gallery Books, composited into an article header by Blog Mickey. Chapek portrait and the Disney100 photo are Walt Disney Company images from the WDWMagic gallery.
