A Disneyland Ticket Is Behind Shonda Rhimes’ Departure From ABC
‘DON’T YOU HAVE ENOUGH?’
Dia Dipasupil/Getty
TV producer Shonda Rhimes left ABC, where she had worked for 15 years to produce some of the most successful network television shows of the past two decades, after Disney executives refused to give her sister a pass to Disneyland in 2017, she told The Hollywood Reporter. Her sister visited Los Angeles and planned to take Rhimes’ teenage daughter to the theme park. As part of her deal with ABC, Rhimes received an all-inclusive pass there. After reportedly wrangling with Disney executives—several said “We never do this,” according to Rhimes—she procured a second pass, but when the two arrived, one pass didn’t work. Rhimes said she called a Disney executive, who asked, “Don’t you have enough?” Rhimes and her representatives had been in negotiations with ABC at the time over reupping her deal to produce shows with the network, and the producer called her lawyers that day and told them to strike a deal with Netflix.