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In mid-April, when the Walt Disney Co.’s head of home entertainment publicity, Chris Bess, got an email at 7 a.m. asking him to come in for a meeting at 9 a.m. — which, amid news reports of impending job cuts at the company, was a telltale sign of a layoff — the longtime publicist was in disbelief. His little team of three had already lost a member the summer before, and he didn’t think he had anything to worry about. Instead, his entire team was let go, as Disney cut about 1,000 out of its more than 200,000 employees worldwide. In the days and weeks that followed, Bess went through a whole cycle of grief. “You feel anger, you feel disappointment, you feel sadness that it was all coming to an end, and hurt — because I felt like I had been loyal all those years,” he tells me.
The 58-year-old had been at the company since the early ’90s, starting out as an administrative assistant in theatrical publicity and working his way up to the role of executive director, leading promotional pushes for Angels in the Outfield, Pocahontas and The Hunchback of Notre Dame. He’d already been laid off by Disney once, in 2006, followed by a three-year stint at Madame Tussauds and then a decade at 20th Century Fox… which was then acquired by Disney, bringing him back into the fold. That made it more than three decades at the House of Mouse for Bess. Most people lie low after a job loss, especially one that gets reported in the trades. But Bess took the opposite path — he decided to post through it. Just a couple weeks after his exit, he recorded a video on Instagram, titled “Disney Laid Me Off After 31 Years.”
“I’ve been processing it and coming to terms with it and I’m just sad that not only am I leaving after 31 years of doing what I loved,” he says in the reel. “I have an intense passion for cinema and for all the publicity that we’ve done, and I love it. And I’m very grateful for the experiences and the opportunity to work for a great brand.” The video has racked up nearly two million views and 30,000 likes. Bess’ experience is a relatable and unfortunately defining hallmark of those working in Hollywood, especially execs with a couple of decades on their résumé and in the hard-hit Gen X demo: Work in this town long enough, and you’ll have gone through a strike or two, and a layoff or three. And with the Paramount Skydance-Warner Bros. Discovery mega-merger on the horizon — with Paramount CEO David Ellison and team promising $6 billion in synergies — more entertainment jobs are certain to disappear, and people will switch fields, as corporate consolidation whittles away at the workforce. For today’s Series Business, I spoke to several boots-on-the-ground industry veterans who’ve lost jobs after working at major studios and streamers for decades. They are by turns anxious and adrift, and grateful and eager to keep working. They are part of a workforce that has had to survive and adapt to seemingly endless rounds of layoffs — and has gleaned valuable insights along the way. From their hard-won experience, you’ll learn:
- The “paralyzing anxiety” of losing a job you built your identity around, and what to do about it
- The survivor guilt of outlasting rounds of cuts — and why it still hits hard when your turn finally comes
- How to recover from the blow that punctures “a false sense of security” — and why going public on social media can be an effective strategy
- Why it’s okay to wallow a little before the next move
- The extra burden for execs of color as DEI programs roll back
- Why longtime execs remain proud of their loyalty to the companies that cut them
- How Bess has shifted his vision for his next role amid new industry realities — and how to show you have skills for 2026
- 4 crucial steps to finding your way back to the workforce
Don’t stop here
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