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Bob Iger’s Wife, Willow Bay, May Have to Move Her Free Speech Fundraiser
The Hollywood Reporter ^ | September 19, 2025 | Peter Kiefer

Posted on 09/19/2025 4:10:33 PM PDT by nickcarraway

A fundraiser for Willow Bay's International Women's Media Foundation, planned to take place at the power couple's Brentwood home next month, may have to relocate after her husband yanks Jimmy Kimmel off the air.

The blast zone from The Walt Disney Company’s decision to pull Jimmy Kimmel’s late-night talk show off the air is now threatening to engulf the Brentwood home of Bob Iger, who just happens to be married to Willow Bay, dean of the USC Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism.

Iger, along with Disney Entertainment chairman Dana Walden, was the Disney exec who pulled the chord on Kimmel’s suspension over on-air comments about Charlie Kirk’s murder — and that decision has prompted a journalism non-profit that Bay (and Iger) have supported for years to consider distancing themselves from the westside power couple. An annual fundraiser for the International Women’s Media Foundation, an organization dedicated to elevating female and non-binary journalists and boasts some of the biggest names in broadcast journalism as board members — CBS’ Norah O’Donnell, NBC News’ Andrea Mitchell, and ABC News’ Kerry Smith, among others — is reconsidering its decision to hold its annual fundraiser at Bay and Iger’s home next month, according to several sources.

Bob Iger Says Disney Unlikely to Follow Comcast and Warner Bros. Discovery in Exiting the TV Channel Business No final decision has been made, but several board members have expressed their concerns internally over the optics of holding a free speech event at the home of the man who yanked Kimmel off the air. Iger’s decision has prompted widespread condemnation across the media and entertainment landscape as a brazen capitulation to the Trump Administration that’s been trying to silence its critics.

An IMWF source expressed sympathy for Bay, who, as a spouse, should not be held accountable for the decisions of her husband, but then added that as the head of one of the most prestigious journalism programs in the country thrusts her into a particularly tricky spot. “The discussion among some board members is that we just can’t hold this event right now,” says a source.

Bay is a former news anchor and correspondent and worked for NBC’s Today Show and ABC’s Good Morning America Sunday among others. She and Iger married in 1995, and she was appointed the first female dean of Annenberg in 2017. Her ties to the IMWF dates back almost two decades. She’s the chair of the IMWF’s Los Angeles advisory committee and has been a major donor as well. Last year the Iger Bay Foundation gave $50K to the IMWF.

Bay did not respond to a request for comment.


TOPICS:
KEYWORDS: bobiger; disney; freespeech; imwf; usc; willowbay
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To: Liz

Ya. He looks like he wants to be right there.


21 posted on 09/19/2025 7:52:59 PM PDT by Kudsman (Emulate Charlie, not the left.)
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To: hellinahandcart

I thought it was a brand from Home Depot, like lights and fans and toilets.


22 posted on 09/19/2025 7:53:08 PM PDT by dwg2
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To: nickcarraway

So here we start the “Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon”


23 posted on 09/19/2025 7:55:45 PM PDT by DCPatriot ("It aint what you don't know that kills you. It's what you know that aint so" Theodore Sturgeon))
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To: xp38

An annual fundraiser for the International Women’s Media Foundation, an organization dedicated to elevating female and non-binary journalists.

Shouldn’t it be called the International Gender Confused
Media Foundation ???


24 posted on 09/19/2025 7:57:55 PM PDT by tet68 ("We would not die in that man's company that fears his fellowship to die with us." Henry V.)
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To: dwg2

That’s “Glacier Bay.”


25 posted on 09/19/2025 8:17:54 PM PDT by hellinahandcart
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To: nickcarraway

“Pieces of eight!” “Pieces of Eight” “What’s that in the eyeglass Captain hook?”

“It’s an uninhabitable island full of snakes, we’ll lay anchor for only a night and a night, in that willow bay.”


26 posted on 09/19/2025 8:30:22 PM PDT by Varsity Flight ( "War by 🙏 the prophesies set before you." ) I Timothy 1:18. Nazarite warriors. 10.5.6.5 These Days)
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To: nickcarraway

Willow Bay...was she in a Hallmark movie?


27 posted on 09/20/2025 1:08:19 PM PDT by mowowie
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To: mowowie

Close. She used to vamp on one of the morning network shows and ESPN.


28 posted on 09/20/2025 1:26:23 PM PDT by jjotto ("...saith the LORD: yet I loved Jacob, And I hated Esau...")
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