Emilio Estevez is setting the record straight about his departure from “The Mighty Ducks” spin-off series.
The veteran actor — famous for 1980s films such as “The Breakfast Club” and “St. Elmo’s Fire” — hit back at a report that the studio behind Disney+ series “The Mighty Ducks: Game Changers” didn’t pick up his option for season two “after weeks of back and forth with his team over the show’s COVID vaccination requirement.”
Esteves, who starred in the original 1992 movie that spun off the successful franchise, shared a lengthy statement to Deadline (which published the initial report) explaining that he was not against the COVID-19 mandate and previously suffered from a bout of coronavirus, which has killed more than 700,000 people in the U.S. since early 2020.
“I take this pandemic very seriously, and I am often teased about my continued following of the safety protocols and my abundance of caution,” the 59-year-old Staten Island native assured. “I want to address what transpired and clear up some falsehoods which appeared in an article regarding my decision to depart ‘The Mighty Ducks: Game Changers.’ ”
According to Estevez, the “final analysis” for exiting the series prior to season two was “nothing more than a good old fashioned contract dispute and not, as some would believe an anti-vaccine position.”
Sharing his experience of becoming ill, being diagnosed with COVID-19 in March 2020 and suffered the remainder of the year from symptoms associated with what is termed long haul syndrome, the father of two admitted that he “wrongly chose to protect the show over being transparent” about contracting the deadly disease.
“Simply put, I am anti-bully,” he stated, adding: “My exit from the show was due to a myriad of creative differences – any other narrative is false.”
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