Use the function below to strip out and disable the emoji support in WordPress. Emoji’s are enabled by default and add unnecessary styles and scripts in the header of the site, regardless of theme. Adding the below to your themes functions.php or in a standalone plugin (to override regardless of theme) will do the job:
/**
* Disable the emoji's
*/
function disable_emojis() {
remove_action( 'wp_head', 'print_emoji_detection_script', 7 );
remove_action( 'admin_print_scripts', 'print_emoji_detection_script' );
remove_action( 'wp_print_styles', 'print_emoji_styles' );
remove_action( 'admin_print_styles', 'print_emoji_styles' );
remove_filter( 'the_content_feed', 'wp_staticize_emoji' );
remove_filter( 'comment_text_rss', 'wp_staticize_emoji' );
remove_filter( 'wp_mail', 'wp_staticize_emoji_for_email' );
// Remove from TinyMCE
add_filter( 'tiny_mce_plugins', 'disable_emojis_tinymce' );
}
add_action( 'init', 'disable_emojis' );
/**
* Filter out the tinymce emoji plugin.
*/
function disable_emojis_tinymce( $plugins ) {
if ( is_array( $plugins ) ) {
return array_diff( $plugins, array( 'wpemoji' ) );
} else {
return array();
}
}
Hope this helps.