Former president Barack Obama regaled attendees of a California rally with the story of how he was once kicked out of Disneyland for smoking with his friends.
College-aged Obama had just wrapped up a concert when he and his buddies decided to take a ride on the gondolas while smoking. (“These were cigarettes, people,” he added, to laughter.) Two large officers proceeded to escort Obama and his friends out of the park for breaking the rules.
“This is a true story, everybody,” he said. “I was booted from the Magic Kingdom.”
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Obama recalls that the guards told him he could come back to the park at any time, and it turns out the company’s stance on that hasn’t changed at all during the years. Walt Disney Co. DIS, +0.64% Chief Executive Bob Iger echoed the sentiment on Twitter Saturday.
@BarackObama just opened his speech in Anaheim with a story from his college years about getting kicked out of Disneyland for smoking cigarettes on a ride. "This is a true story everybody, I was booted from the Magic Kingdom!" He can always come back, as long as he doesn't smoke!
— Robert Iger (@RobertIger) September 8, 2018
The 44th president made his Disneyland comments at a campaign rally intended to help the Democrats take back the House of Representatives in the November election. Obama has largely stayed out of the spotlight since leaving office, but he’s been more active on the political scene over the past couple days.
At Saturday’s event in Anaheim, Obama encouraged voters to take off their “bedroom slippers” and put on their “marching boots,” according to a New York Times account of the rally.
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“The biggest threat to our democracy is not one individual,” he said. Rather, the problem is “apathy” and “indifference.”
Obama blasted President Donald Trump at a Friday event in Illinois. “We sure as heck are supposed to stand up clearly and unequivocally to Nazi sympathizers,” he said. “How hard can that be? Saying that Nazis are bad?”
