Abigail Disney: “There is such a thing as too much money”

Abigail Disney inherited incredible wealth from her grandfather, Roy Disney — Walt Disney’s brother and business partner. But even though her financial circumstances are extraordinary, the tensions she’s spent her life navigating feel pretty familiar: What do we owe other people? What happens when you outgrow the story you were raised with about money? And what happens when those values put us at odds with the people and institutions we were taught to protect?

This week, host Reema Khrais talks to Abigail Disney about her approach to philanthropy, and how she went from feeling deeply uncomfortable with her wealth to publicly questioning the company that created it.

Abigail told Reema that she butted heads with her parents about their different outlooks on giving. “My mother said to me, you're giving money away. This is crazy. How will you protect yourself from the people who are asking?” But ultimately, Abigail decided that she didn’t want to live that way. “I could walk around being suspicious and defensive all the time, or I could choose not to do that and once in a while, I would get burned. And I decided getting occasionally burned was the price I was willing to pay not to kind of armor myself.”

A few takeaways from this episode:

• Outgrowing your values: Abigail was raised to be loyal to the family’s company and definitely not criticize it in public, but ultimately she saw that as being at odds with her other values. “I don't think [loyalty] trumps all the other values necessarily. And I didn't think that the way they were treating people was a value I was obliged to be loyal to.”

• Finding motivation from guilt: “I think of guilt as actually not a terrible thing to feel, because it's been a very animating emotion for me to have,” Abigail explains to Reema. “So much of what I've done is out of guilt, creating in me a desire to cross a bridge that felt like it existed between me and the rest of the world.”

• Philanthropy is just one tool for change: Abigail has continued to give money, but she realized that there are other ways she can help make a difference, including leveraging her famous name. Started making documentaries about war and gender and inequality, often centering people challenging powerful institutions. She even spoke out about wealth inequity within the Disney company.

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