Fran Drescher, the Screen Actors Guild president, criticized comments from Disney CEO Bob Iger about the ongoing strikes by SAG and the Writers Guild of America.
“I found them terribly repugnant and out of touch,” Drescher told Variety on Friday. “Positively tone deaf. I don’t think it served him well.”
Drescher was referring to remarks Iger made Thursday following a vote from the actors union, representing some 160,000 performers, to strike.
Iger, who makes about $27 million a year, complained that Hollywood workers’ demands for equitable wages and better working conditions are “not realistic.”
“It’s very disturbing to me. We’ve talked about disruptive forces on this business and all the challenges we’re facing, the recovery from COVID, which is ongoing, it’s not completely back. This is the worst time in the world to add to that disruption,” he told CNBC.
Iger added that the writers and actors “are adding to the set of the challenges that this business is already facing that is, quite frankly, very disruptive.”
(His comments on the disruptive nature of the strikes are correct: That is their intended purpose.)
“If I were that company, I would lock him behind doors and never let him talk to anybody about this,” Drescher told Variety, referring to Disney.
“It’s so obvious that he has no clue as to what is really happening on the ground with hard working people that don’t make anywhere near the salary he is making,” she continued. “High seven figures, eight figures, this is crazy money that they make, and they don’t care if they’re land barons of a medieval time.”