Steve Whitmire, the puppeteer for Kermit the Frog for 27 years, says he was "blindsided" by his abrupt firing by the Muppet Studio at Disney last year.
"The Muppets were . . . my heroes," Whitmire told Newsmax TV's "The Joe Pags Show" on Wednesday.
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"If I wanted to be an actor on the screen, I could have done that, and I never did," he said. "To me, it was about bring these characters to life."
Whitmire said he was cast as Kermit after creator Jim Henson died in 1990, but had been working with Henson for 12 years before that.
"I used to joke that I would never retire, I would be carried out of a sound stage with Kermit on my hand and a toe tag on my toe," he said. "As long as I was able, I certainly intended for this to be the rest of my life."
But when Disney took over the Muppets, things changed – and "rightly so," he said.
"'The Muppets' had a little creative bubble, and my goal has always been to try to preserve that within Disney and integrate it into what Disney needed," Whitmire said.
The end came abruptly last October, after discussions about becoming a creative producer had been underway, Whitmire said.
"I thought this phone call was to continue those discussions," he said. "I mean it was all but formalized, we were going down that path. And instead, they said basically 'we've decided not to do that, and we also decided to recast all your characters.'"
"It was like someone slapped me as hard as they could. It was out of nowhere and I really had no warning at all . . . I was blindsided by the extent of this," he added.
He disputed claims Disney warned him about his business conduct.
"Had I had an ultimatum, I would have worked to straightened that out," he said.
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