The life and activism of Abigail Disney, the millionaire heiress who wants to be taxed more and is critical of her family company
- Abigail Disney is one of a handful of ultrawealthy people calling on governments to tax them more.
- She's been arrested for protesting over private jets and has been critical of her family's business.
Abigail Disney is making headlines again, this time for her involvement in a new campaign by some of the world's ultrawealthy to convince government leaders to tax them more.
Disney is one of over 250 millionaires and billionaires who signed an open letter proclaiming they're "proud to pay more" in taxes to "address the dramatic rise of economic inequality."
Disney, who is the grandniece of Walt Disney, is one of the most vocal supporters of higher taxes for the wealthy among the wealthy themselves. She's also a film producer and has been a frequent critic of the House of Mouse over the years. Disney was not immediately available for comment when contacted by Business Insider.
Here's a closer look at the life, career, and activism of Abigail Disney:
Abigail Disney is the grandniece of Walt Disney.
Her grandfather, Roy O. Disney, cofounded The Walt Disney Company alongside his younger brother, Walt, in 1923.
She has three siblings, Susan, Tim, and Roy P. Disney.
Growing up, she said her family was upper-middle-class for a time before Disney's stock price — and thus their wealth — skyrocketed. At that point, she "didn't even recognize" her family anymore.
"We went from being comfortable, upper-middle-class people to suddenly my dad had a private jet," she told The Cut in 2019. "That's when I feel that my dad really lost his way in life. And that's why I feel hyperconscious about what wealth does to people. I lived in one family as a child, and then I didn't even recognize the family as I got older."
She has spoken at length about the ways her family name and wealth have given her a very comfortable life.
"Because of my grandfather's extraordinary success, I have lived a life of enormous privilege," she wrote recently. "I don't think there is a single luxury, comfort, or convenience that I have not experienced over the course of my life on account of my family's wealth."
Disney has degrees from Yale, Stanford, and Columbia universities.
Disney says she pursued her degrees, in English literature and philosophy, partly because of "an inferiority complex around people who have actually earned their money."
"I did grow up with this doubt about myself," she told The Cut in 2019. "Like, did Yale really say yes because I was that good, or did Yale say yes because of my last name? I'll never know. I've spent a lot of time earning things like postgraduate degrees that make me feel legitimate."
Disney married fellow film producer Pierre Hauser in 1988, and they share four children.
Disney hasn't shied away from criticizing her family's business.
In 2019, she said she'd gone to Disneyland undercover after getting a message from an upset employee, and she felt "livid" at the working conditions she saw at the California theme park.
"Bob needs to understand he's an employee, just the same as the people scrubbing gum off the sidewalk are employees," Disney told Yahoo News at the time, "and they're entitled to all the same dignity and human rights that he is."
She has also taken digs at Disney CEO Bob Iger. She said last year that she believed he was a "basically decent person," but that "money and power have hijacked his sensibilities."
"As with so many people at the very top of systems, they can't see outside of the system they're in," she told Fortune at the time. "They can't imagine a different way of doing it, and that's what we need."
She has also called Iger's pay package "insane" relative to what the average Disney worker makes and said it was a "moral issue."
Disney's exact net worth is unknown but she said in 2019 she was "roughly around $120 million."
"I'm roughly around $120m and I have been for some time now," Disney said of her net worth in an interview with the Financial Times in 2019.
She says she has given away tens of millions of dollars over the past three decades.
Speaking with The Cut in 2019, Disney declined to say how much she'd inherited but said she'd given away roughly $70 million since turning 21 and planned to continue giving until her death.
Disney has also railed against private jet use and expressed regret for taking them before.
In July 2023, Disney and a group of climate activists were arrested for blocking an airport in the Hamptons while protesting against private jets and the carbon emissions they generate.
She recently recalled a time she took a private jet alone from California to New York years ago, saying she knew the flight was generating harmful emissions "for no other reason besides my own selfish convenience," she said.
"As I strapped myself into the aircraft's queen-sized bed for some shut-eye, I had an uncomfortable epiphany: this was wrong," she added.
She's called private jets "a cancer" and said that today, she flies commercial.
Disney often speaks about the dangers of wealth inequality and is one of the most recognizable faces of the efforts from the world's ultrarich to raise their taxes.
She's a member of the Patriotic Millionaires, a group that supports "public policies based on the 'first principles' of equal political representation, a guaranteed living wage for all working citizens, and a fair tax system," according to its website.
She repeatedly called for higher taxes on wealthy people like herself as a means of addressing economic inequality.
"We're creating a superclass so far above the vast majority of people that they don't share the same planet anymore," she said in 2019 of America's vast income inequality. "We've eroded all the paths to the American dream that my grandfather and great-uncle took."
That year, she was one of 18 ultrawealthy Americans to sign a letter calling on 2020 presidential candidates to support a wealth tax, and in 2022, she was one of more than 300 rich Americans who called on Congress for a surtax on millionaires' income.
"Paying more taxes would not affect our lifestyles, and we have the ability to pay more than we currently do," the letter said.
Besides activism and philanthropy, Disney is also a film producer.
Alongside filmmaker and producer Gini Reticker, Disney cofounded media production company Fork Films in 2007.
According to its website, the company has created original productions and funded more than 100 documentaries.
The company's first documentary, "Pray the Devil Back to Hell," centered on the grassroots activism of women in Liberia who fought for peace amid a bloody civil war.
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