Shonda Rhimes Quit ABC After They Played Dirty With A Disneyland Pass

A little over three years ago, Shonda Rhimes announced she was leaving her longtime home at ABC and going to Netflix, and it made everyone wonder just how much cash Netflix gave her. Because that’s the only thing that could have pulled Shonda away from her lucrative contract with ABC, right? Money? Lots and lots of money? Shonda recently spilled all the beans during an interview with The Hollywood Reporter, and we were all wrong. Shonda says it was because ABC made her beg for an all-access pass to Disneyland, a pass they then secretly reneged on, which they then had the audacity to accuse her of being greedy. To quote Goofy: gawrsh.

Shonda explains exactly how, according to her, the Disneyland pass situation started. She says that she was given an all-inclusive pass to Disneyland as part of her relationship with ABC. Disney owns ABC, and Shonda had made a lot of money for Disney and ABC with super-successful Emmy-winning shows like Grey’s Anatomy, Private Practice, Scandal, and How to Get Away with Murder. So ABC gave Shonda with a pass to Disneyland. Shonda has three kids on her own, so she asked ABC to give her nanny the second pass that would usually go to a spouse. They did.

But remember about two seconds ago when I mentioned how many successful TV shows Shonda had created for ABC? You don’t stay that busy by going to Disneyland every damn day. So naturally, on one of the days that Shonda’s nanny wanted to take her three daughters to Disneyland, Shonda’s sister decided to tag along and help. The only problem is, those passes only work for one very important person and they can’t be transferred to other people. When Shonda learned her pass wasn’t transferable to her sister, she called up ABC. Shonda says that after a bunch of aggravating back and forth calls in which she was informed that they “never do this,” she was given the additional pass. And guess what the fuck happened when Shonda’s sister got to the front gate?

When her daughters arrived in Anaheim, only one of the passes worked. Rhimes lobbed a call to a high-ranking executive at the company. Surely, he would get this sorted.

Instead, the exec allegedly replied, “Don’t you have enough?”

A one-day hopper pass to Disneyland cost $199 in 2019. Shonda could have been talking about a VIP pass, which comes with a VIP guide and costs between $425 to $650 per hour.

Shonda says that she was already in a bad place mentally with ABC because she felt like they weren’t giving her all the creative control and content freedom she could be getting. So the Disneyland thing was officially the nail in the coffin for her. So Shonda did what Shonda does best when an asshole crosses Shonda. She made ABC disappear (at least from her phone’s contact list).

Rhimes was beside herself. She thanked him for his time, then hung up and called her lawyer: Figure out a way to get her over to Netflix, or she’d find new representatives.

Shonda’s lawyer isn’t Annalise Keating, because Annalise Keating isn’t real. But if she was, this would be where Annalise might place a call to Disney and ask, “Why are you nickel and dime-ing the reason why your channel isn’t just dancing celebrities and dads getting hit in the crotch with baseballs.”

Pic: Wenn.com