15, evidently being one of the most critical days of your professional life.
JAM: Then that leaves us with Friday, Dec. Skipper: That discussion occurred on Friday afternoon, before I resigned on Monday. When did the conversation with Bob take place? JAM: Well, we spoke the next day, Thursday, and made plans to get together the following week for a long-promised interview about ESPN. On that day, when you gave that speech, did you have any thought about resigning? The previous Wednesday you addressed a large community of ESPN employees and gave a rather impassioned speech about the company’s future. JAM: Your resignation statement was released on a Monday. Skipper: It was clear to me that I put Bob in an untenable position. JAM: Were you asked to resign by Disney CEO Bob Iger? JAM: Did you resign as president of ESPN?
JAM: Clever as in one wouldn’t have seen the president of ESPN walking around Central Park at night in search of coke? Skipper: It turns out I was more than unusually clever in devising ways to separate my professional life from my personal life. Throughout your years of use, were you worried about getting caught? JAM: You were, however, dealing with an illegal substance. I judge that I did a very good job and that it did not get in the way of my work. My use over the past two decades has, in fact, been quite infrequent. I never allowed it to interfere with my work, other than a missed plane and a few canceled morning appointments. At ESPN I did not use at work, nor with anyone at work, or with anyone I did business with. JAM: Did your cocaine use ever get in the way of your work? JAM: Am I safe to assume then that your substance addiction was cocaine? You know, I’m an old hippie, and then an old New Yorker from the ’80s. I enjoy a martini, I enjoy a bottle of wine with friends for dinner. Skipper: No, I’ve been a social drinker my whole life.
JAM: So, we aren’t talking about alcohol. That they could be used without repercussions. I had a point of view that recreational drugs were recreational, that they weren’t dangerous. I worked at Rolling Stone for the first 10 years of my professional life. Skipper: The statement I released was accurate. JAM: Let’s talk about the nature of the substance abuse, please. I’ve had an opportunity to not use for a long period of time, and I have resources to help me now, which are ongoing. What I’ve done is taken some time for reflection. I’ve grown to learn that taking care of yourself is a continuous, lifelong process. I have not necessarily been comfortable reflecting and being self-reflective. Therapy isn’t easy, particularly for a Southerner tightly wound with traditional values. I thought the best thing to do was to take the time to check myself into a facility, and I was able to understand a bit more about substance use and to think about how it intersected with my life. I have decided that the most important thing I can do right now is to take care of my problem.” Do you feel like you’ve done that, or at least begun the process? JAM: In your resignation statement, you wrote, “I have struggled for many years with a substance addiction. The following is excerpted from those in-person conversations: Over the course of several hours during the first two weeks of March, Skipper was interviewed for the first time since his departure by ESPN historian, journalist and Hollywood Reporter contributor James Andrew Miller. Prior to his departure, Skipper had been orchestrating a multipronged strategy to combat the negativity and project an optimistic and ambitious trajectory for the company in the years ahead.ĭisney, ESPN Officially Ink New Long-Term Rights Deal With Formula 1 But cord-cutting, rising programming costs and other challenges during Skipper’s presidency resulted in several rounds of layoffs and skepticism from Wall Street about ESPN’s future. He became president of ESPN in January of 2012 and spearheaded the company’s aggressive campaign to secure long-term rights deals for live sporting events from the NBA, college football and many other sports. Skipper, 62, the married father of two sons, was raised in North Carolina and had worked at Disney for 27 years. 18, 2017, John Skipper suddenly resigned as president of ESPN and co-chairman of Disney Media Networks, citing his desire to seek treatment for what he called a “substance addiction.” The announcement shocked employees at ESPN and its parent company, and was met with disbelief and confusion throughout the sports and media worlds.
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