Disney grandniece backs Meryl Streep on Walt's racism and sexism

Abigail Disney, grandniece of Walt, has backed up Meryl Streep following the actor's recent comments about Walt Disney where she referred to him as a "gender bigot" and a member of an antisemitic lobbying organisation.

Disney took to Facebook to say she "loved" the actor's remarks, as she had "mixed feelings" about her great-uncle. "You really need to be as honest as possible about those feelings, or else you are going to lead yourself into many a blind alley in life," she said. "Anti-Semite? Check. Misogynist? OF COURSE!! Racist? C'mon he made a film (Jungle Book) about how you should stay 'with your own kind' at the height of the fight over segregation! As if the 'King of the Jungle' number wasn't proof enough!! How much more information do you need?"

She then went on to admit that "he was hella good at making films and his work has made billions of people happy. There's no denying it."

Streep made her comments during an awards presentation to Emma Thompson, who starred in Saving Mr Banks, the story of how Walt Disney persuaded PL Travers to let him adapt her book Mary Poppins into a film. Abigail Disney also spoke out against the film, calling it "a misplaced attempt at hagiography."

"I know he was a man of his times and I can forgive him, but Saving Mr Banks was a brazen attempt by the company to make a saint out of the man," she continued. "A devil he was not. Nor an angel ... Streep said exactly what I said about how in spite of it all, his vision was amazing and he brought joy to so many around the world. So I say Brava Meryl."

Abigail Disney, 54, is a documentary producer, working on films like Hell and Back Again, about the plight of soldiers returning from Afghanistan, and The Queen of Versailles, which followed a rich couple building their Versailles-inspired dream mansion amid the financial crisis. The latter was nominated for the Grand Jury Prize at Sundance in 2012, and was named one of the Guardian's ten best films of the year.

In 2012, she gave to charity profits from an Israeli cosmetics firm that Disney holds an investment in, saying the company was exploiting "occupied natural resources" with its factory in the West Bank.