Fran Drescher calls Bob Iger a medieval land baron

“I found them terribly repugnant and out of touch,” Drescher said of the Disney CEO’s remarks.

Author Maureen Lee Lenker

On Friday, Drescher, who is president of the SAG-AFTRA union, addressed remarks Disney CEO Bob Iger made about the actors’ strike.

“I found them terribly repugnant and out of touch,” Drescher told Variety from the picket line. “Positively tone deaf. I don’t think it served him well.”

Drescher was specifically speaking to comments Iger made during a July 13 CNBC interview at Allen & Co.’s annual Sun Valley conference (also known as “summer camp for billionaires”) in which he deemed the union’s expectations “not realistic.”

Fran Drescher, Robert Iger

Fran Drescher; Bob Iger

| Credit: CHRIS DELMAS/AFP via Getty Images; JC Olivera/Getty Images

“It’s very disturbing to me,” Iger said of the WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes. “There’s a level of expectation that they have that is just not realistic. And they are adding to the set of the challenges that this business is already facing that is, quite frankly, very disruptive.”

Iger’s remarks were immediately met with ire from many on the internet and actors and writers on the picket line. Drescher addressed his remarks as evidence that he has no idea what’s happening with the union members in their day-to-day lives.

“If I were that company, I would lock him behind doors and never let him talk to anybody about this, because 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 said. “High seven figures, eight figures, this is crazy money that they make, and they don’t care — they’re like land barons of a medieval time.”

Drescher was demonstrative in her speech at Thursday’s press conference announcing the SAG-AFTRA strike and the challenges of negotiating with the Alliance of Motion Pictures and Television Producers (AMPTP).

“We are being victimized by a very greedy entity,” she said. “I am shocked by the way the people that we have been in business with are treating us. I cannot believe it, quite frankly. How far apart we are on so many things. How they plead poverty, that they’re losing money left and right while giving hundreds and millions of dollars to their CEOs. It is disgusting. Shame on them. They stand on the wrong side of history at this very moment.”

As of midnight on Friday, July 14, over 160,000 members of the actors’ union went on strike, joining the writers on the picket line.