“Not that I haven’t been invited. I’ve been invited,” said Eisner, who served as Disney’s CEO from 1984-2005.

Former CEO Michael Eisner reveals why he won’t step foot into Disney headquarters since leaving

"Not that I haven't been invited. I've been invited," said Eisner, who served as Disney's CEO from 1984-2005.

By Mekishana Pierre

Mekishana Pierre

Mekishana Pierre is a news writer at **. She has been working at EW since 2025. Her work has previously appeared on *Entertainment Tonight* and Popsugar.

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February 21, 2026 4:00 p.m. ET

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Michael Eisner with Mickey Mouse in 2003. Credit:

Mike Guastella/WireImage

It's been over 20 years since former Disney CEO Michael Eisner stepped down from his role as the head of the House of Mouse, and according to him that's the last time he stepped foot in the company's headquarters.**

In a recent interview on the *In Depth With Graham Bensinger *show fully published Tuesday*,* Eisner — who served as Disney's chairman and chief executive officer from 1984-2005 — looked back on the trials and tribulations of his multi-decade career with the company and explained why he hasn't been back since his reign ended.**

Widely considered responsible for tremendous growth of the Walt Disney Company for the first decade of his tenure, Eisner, now 83, noted that he hasn't been "inside in the offices" since "the day I left."

Michael Eisner and 'In Depth' host Graham Bensinger.

Graham Bensinger/YouTube

"Not that I haven't been invited. I've been invited," he clarified. "Once you sell your house, you move on."**

Still, Eisner doesn't hold any hard feelings towards his old company, he told Bensinger. "Well, there was change going on. I was stubborn. I did not want to buy Pixar for a price that I thought was crazy," he recalled. "It wasn't as depressing as the media made it. We were still doing very well. We were still a great company. I had decided that we couldn't lose any more money with Roy Disney making movies. So, I stopped that. Probably a bad political decision, but the right decision."

"I tried and succeeded in getting rid of Harvey Weinstein," the former CEO said of the disgraced movie mogul and convicted sex offender, adding that the board wasn't upset at the decision. "They went wild about Harvey and he was losing money. The only thing that was unpopular was that Harvey and Steve and Roy become adversaries to the CEO. One had the name of Disney. I didn't. One was Steve Jobs, an American one of a kind. And the other was a despicable man who was loved by the media for a long time because of the movies he made."

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The 83-year-old went on to claim that he "made the judgment call, probably right, but not politically smart, that I was not going to put up with it." So he left.

"I was ready. 21 years at Disney having every weekend, with 20 scripts by my bed that I hadn't read, and thousands of emails," he explained. "Building a park in Shanghai and having just built a park in Hong Kong, doing Animal Kingdom, doing a second park in in Paris, etc. I was ready to move here [his home]. I was ready to move to the one street in Los Angeles that felt like New York. I was ready to not have 20 unread scripts. I was ready to actually own myself. I think change is good in in management because it also creates opportunity to go in new directions. You can't just stay in the old directions."**

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Reflecting on the two decades of Disney history since his exit, Eisner told Bensinger that he felt "the company's in great shape."

"I think Bob Iger has been an excellent CEO. I'm happy that he was a person that I recommended," he added. "That I got it through the board. He was not the board's first choice in the beginning. He ended up being the unanimous choice. He came out of ABC. He was a president under me for a decade. He understands the company."

Michael Eisner at Sportico Invest West on May 8, 2025, in Inglewood, Calif.

JC Olivera/Sportico via Getty

Josh D'Amaro has since been elected CEO at Disney, effective on March 18. Alongside him, Dana Walden has been named president and chief creative officer, and will report directly to D'Amaro in a historic change to the company's typical hierarchy. Iger will continue to serve as senior advisor and a member of the Disney Board until his retirement from the company on December 31.

Eisner congratulated D'Amaro on being named CEO via a post shared on X, in which he offered him a bit of advice for navigating the job. Most notably, he told the upcoming CEO to "continue Bob Iger's strategy that creativity will handle profits, always protect the brand."

He also advised D'Amaro to keep close the words of Walt Disney: "We love to entertain kings and queens, but the vital thing to remember is this — every guest receives the VIP treatment."**

Watch a clip of Eisner's interview above.

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