Former Disney CEO Michael Eisner has issued a public statement defending his fiercely criticised comments about the apparent paucity of beautiful, funny women in Hollywood.
Eisner attracted media headlines across the globe following his suggestion that “the hardest artist to find is a beautiful, funny woman” during an on-stage conversation with Goldie Hawn. He claimed that Hawn was an exception to the rule because she herself didn’t “think” she was attractive. Hawn, for her part, confessed to thinking of herself as an “ugly duckling”.
In a statement, Eisner said: “In the context of a public conversation with Goldie Hawn in which I was complimenting her on being both beautiful and funny, I said such a combination is hard to come by in Hollywood. I certainly did not say Goldie was the only one. My point was simply that Goldie, unlike many, has not been defined exclusively as one or the other.”
During the original conversation, Eisner added: “I know women who have been told they’re beautiful, they win Miss Arkansas, they don’t ever have to get attention other than with their looks. So they don’t tell a joke. In the history of the motion-picture business, the number of beautiful, really beautiful women — a Lucille Ball — that are funny, is impossible to find.”
Eisner, who held the senior position at Disney from 1984 to 2005, later received criticism from prominent Hollywood figures such as the producer Megan Ellison and Inside Out actor Mindy Kaling.
@meganeellison @THR this was said at an "ideas festival". Pitiful.
— Mindy Kaling (@mindykaling) July 4, 2015
