Famous actors, musicians, and even a former President of the United States have been banned from Disney theme parks over the years for breaking the rules. Disney theme parks may be the happiest places on Earth, but that doesn’t mean visitors can do whatever they want.
Disneyland, Walt Disney World, and Disney destinations around the globe have policies they expect guests to follow. Keep reading to see who Disney kicked out and why. Mickey Visit brings you the latest Disney news and planning resources, including new Star Wars popcorn buckets coming to Disneyland and 10 attractions that recently closed at Disney’s Hollywood Studios.
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Disney Bans Celebrities Like Any Other Guest
There are various stories from guests getting kicked out of the theme parks or banned. They are not uncommon. Guests who don’t follow the Disney rules leave themselves open to potential bans. Sometimes guests purposely break the rules for “fun” and then end up in trouble.
Disney doesn’t differentiate between normal guests and celebrities. Some celebs learned this the hard way during their careers. There are some fun stories from celebrities who have been banned or kicked out of the theme parks over the course of their careers, both early on and once they were known.
We share some of these stories and the punishments that celebrities received. Check out the full list. We’ll start off with a new story that has been going viral on social media.
Jesse Cole
Though lenient, a dress code does exist at Disney theme parks. Most of the dress code is standard policy for a family-friendly environment.
Guests cannot wear anything bearing obscene language or visuals, and cannot expose inappropriate body parts. The rule most unique to Disney in the park’s dress code is that adult guests cannot wear character costumes, except during Halloween events.
Jesse Cole, founder of Banana Ball and the Savannah Bananas, was ejected from a Walt Disney World theme park in 2017 for violating the dress code. The Savannah Bananas are now an incredible phenomenon known across the country as the wacky baseball league that brings fun into the games and sells out massive stadiums. In 2017, that was not the case. Cole was not nearly as widely known and the Savannah Bananas were still building up.
After establishing his signature yellow tuxedo outfit and the release of his book “Find Your Yellow Tux,” Cole visited EPCOT for a “world book tour.” He visited each country in EPCOT’s World Showcase and captured photos of himself, cast members, and guests holding his book.
After visiting the first few countries in his journey around the “world,” he was approached by the park’s security, as Cole explained in a 2026 Instagram Reel.
“A security guy has his eyes on me,” Cole recalled, “and he comes over, and he says, ‘Sir, we’re going to have to ask you to leave. You’re confusing our guests as one of our characters.’ And that was that. He walked me out of the park, and my world book tour was cut short.”
We’d also assume asking cast members to promote a product violated a Disney rule of some nature.
Cole said his ejection “makes complete sense” to him now, and he has no ill will toward Disney. In fact, Disneyland recently hosted a full-fledged Savannah Bananas Day during which the park enthusiastically celebrated Cole and the team’s players. This story went viral after Cole shared a reel from his day at Disneyland sharing that at one point he was ejected by Disneyland, but now is celebrated at the parks.
Later this year, Disney World will host Banana Ball at its ESPN Wide World of Sports complex.
Bruce Springsteen and Steven Van Zandt
Photo via Disney
E Street Band members Bruce Springsteen and Steven Van Zandt were reportedly denied entry into Disneyland for violating a dress code rule many years ago. Springsteen recalled the incident in his 2017 autobiography, Born to Run, quoted by Business Insider.
Cast members stopped Springsteen and Van Zandt from entering Disneyland because they were wearing bandanas. It’s unclear if Disney prohibited all bandanas at the time or if the musicians’ bandanas displayed text or images that violated Disney’s guidelines.
Neither Springsteen nor Van Zandt agreed to take off their bandanas. Instead, they opted to leave with Springsteen shouting these final words: “We’re outta here! Screw you, fascist mouse! We’re going to Knott’s Berry Farm!”
Since then, Disney has produced a 2024 documentary and a 2025 biopic focused on Springsteen, so we assume he would be welcomed back to the park today.
Rebel Wilson
Movie still via Magenta Light Studios
Some Disney theme park guests are simply asked to leave the parks when they break the rules. Others get banned. The amount of time someone is banned from the parks depends on the severity of the offense.
Disneyland banned actor Rebel Wilson from visiting the park for 30 days. Wilson is a Disneyland superfan, having proposed to her wife at the park.
“I took a photo in a secret bathroom inside Disneyland, which is illegal at Disneyland,” Wilson told host Hasan Minhaj during an interview on a 2023 episode of The Daily Show.
However, Wilson continued, Disneyland let her choose which 30-day period she would be prohibited from visiting. “And I said, ‘Oh, June would be fine.’”
In the same interview, Wilson shared that she’s a member of Club 33, Disneyland’s private membership club founded by Walt Disney himself. Reading between the lines, Wilson likely snapped the photo inside the Club 33 bathroom.
The Club 33 website states, “Still photography is permitted only within the public areas of Club 33 … with the exception that still photography inside the men’s and women’s restrooms is strictly prohibited.”
Blake Lively
Photo via Disney
“Gossip Girl” actor Blake Lively’s Disneyland crime landed her and her brother in “Disneyland prison,” as she explained during an interview on a 2009 episode of Late Show with David Letterman.
As a child, Lively visited Disneyland twice a week with her family. When she was six years old, Lively and her older brother tried to sneak into the park for free without parental supervision.
At the time, cast members stamped guests’ hands when they exited the park, and guests could show their stamped hand later to re-enter. Lively’s brother figured out that if he sprayed hairspray on a stamped hand, he could transfer the stamp.
Lively and her brother sneaked away to Disneyland, asked guests in the parking lot who were leaving if they could transfer their stamps with hairspray, and proceeded to enter the park.
After passing through the turnstiles, the kids were approached by Disneyland security cast members, who took the children backstage.
“It’s all white rooms,” Lively told Letterman about being escorted backstage. “Everybody’s dressed in all white. The furniture is all white, and they just interrogate us. Everything is miniature size, like Mike Teevee [in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory]. It’s crazy. It was really scary and traumatizing.”
“They wanted us to admit that we were trying to get in for free and then ban us for life,” Lively continued. “We were strong, and we said that we didn’t do it, but they had us on tape.”
The ban ended up only being for one year, not for life. Lively later made amends with the mouse, as seen in the Disney publicity photo above, captured in 2018 at Disneyland Paris.
Grace Jones
Photo via Disney
Musician Grace Jones performed a concert at House of Blues in Downtown Disney, now called Disney Springs, at Walt Disney World in 1998.
According to an Orlando Sentinel article published after the show, Jones’s concert wasn’t the usual Disney fare.
“House of Blues security had quite a time at Grace Jones’s recent concert,” the Sentinel reported, “but it wasn’t the crowd that was the problem. Jones pulled her top off, then proceeded to light up and smoke a doobie — on stage. Stephanie ‘No Relation’ Jones, spokeswoman for the Walt Disney World club, said: ‘House of Blues does not condone or permit such behavior.’ Mickey could not be revived for comment.”
Disney banned Jones from visiting any Disney properties for life, according to a 2008 feature on the musician in The Independent.
President Barack Obama
Former President Barack Obama was once removed from Disneyland. This incident took place during his time as a student at Occidental College. His crime? Smoking cigarettes while riding the now-defunct Skyway attraction.
In Disneyland’s early decades, smoking was allowed throughout the park. There was even a tobacco shop on Main Street, U.S.A. However, even back then, smoking was never allowed on rides.
Additionally, a former Disneyland ride called the Skyway provided aerial transportation via gondolas, traversing between Tomorrowland and Fantasyland.
Obama briefly discussed his experience during a speech he gave in Anaheim in 2018, as relayed by Travel + Leisure and the Orange County Register.
“I’m ashamed to say this, so close your ears, young people,” Obama told the crowd, “but a few of us were smoking on the gondolas.”
Obama said he was approached by “two very large Disneyland police officers, and they say, ‘Sir, can you come with us?’ They escort us out of Disneyland. This is a true story, everybody. I was booted from the Magic Kingdom.”
Upon hearing Obama’s speech, then-Disney CEO Bob Iger posted on Twitter, now X, “He can always come back, as long as he doesn’t smoke!”
Obama has since visited the Disney theme parks and even orated a formal presidential address at Magic Kingdom in 2012.
Robert Downey Jr.
Movie still via Disney
The Skyway was apparently a popular ride upon which to break the rules. In addition to President Obama smoking a cigarette on board the attraction during his college years, actor Robert Downey Jr. indulged in substances while riding the Skyway in his youth.
Downey shared the story during his acceptance speech when he was named a Disney Legend at D23 Expo 2019, as recorded by Mouse Steps / JWL Media.
“The very first time I went to Disneyland, I was transported to another place,” Downey said, leaving a pause for comedic effect, before continuing, “within moments of being arrested. I was brought to a surprisingly friendly processing center, given a stern warning, and returned to, if memory serves, one very disappointed group chaperone.”
He concluded with his signature theatricality, “I would like to make amends to whomever had to detain me for smoking pot in the gondola without a license.”
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