Former leader of BET shares advice for women in memoir
Former BET Chief Executive Debra Lee is getting candid about her tenure at the cable network in her new memoir, “I Am Debra Lee,” sharing advice for women who want to succeed in corporate America, details about her extramarital affair with BET co-founder Bob Johnson and how she stood up to the likes of Aretha Franklin and Oprah Winfrey during her tenure at the company.
“I wanted to give advice to those coming behind me because that’s always been part of who I am,”
Lee recently told ABC host Robin Roberts on “Good Morning America.” “I was a counselor in college, in law school, did hiring at the law firm, built a great team at BET. I always thought I was pretty normal — I wasn’t the smartest kid in class ... and I just want young people to know if I can do it, they can do it, too. And they should dream big.”
The executive, 68, began her career with the network as its first vice president and general counsel in 1986 and was promoted to president and chief operating officer 10 years later. She was named chairman and CEO in 2005 and stepped down in 2018 after a 13-year tenure, during which she shepherded the launch of the Black entertainment network’s hit shows “Being Mary Jane,” “The Real Husbands of Hollywood” and “In Contempt.”
“I stepped down from BET about three years ago,” Lee told Roberts. “I was supposed to ‘retire,’ but you know that never works for those of us who are used to working so hard. And I always wanted to write a book.”
Lee’s memoir, recently
published by Grand Central Publishing imprint Legacy Lit, is billed as an “intimate and eye-opening tale about the triumphant and tricky moments of a career in entertainment.”
Lee told Roberts that when she stepped down, she “realized there’s still very few Black female CEOs.”
She said that she wants to help women succeed in the workplace with her book, also opening up about “potential pitfalls” and how her personal and professional relationship with her boss affected her career.
Lee told Roberts how she worked for Johnson for 10 years before they began a personal romance. She shared how she was 20 years into her career at BET and was told that if she wanted to break up with Johnson, she should leave the company the next day.
“So I would’ve lost everything. I would’ve lost my career, my job, my ability to maybe get another job (if ) I couldn’t get a reference . ... By that time I was a single mother with two children. So it was a tough time, and I didn’t have anyone to talk to about it because I didn’t have female role models. There weren’t a lot of
women ahead of me. I was embarrassed to talk with my family about it. So it was a dark time.”
The former TV executive said that therapy “saved me.” Johnson eventually left BET in 2006, and Lee became chief executive, clearing a new path on her own terms.
Lee emphasizes that she “wanted to be an example.”
“People see me come out onstage once a year at the BET Awards, and I didn’t like doing that. I also talk in the book about how I’m an introvert and pretty shy. That was always a struggle for me ... but I came out (during the ceremony) so that our audience knew that a Black woman ran the network. And that was making a huge statement,” she told Roberts.
Lee’s memoir lands during another transitional period for BET, as its parent company Paramount is trying to raise money by shedding assets to pay down debt and to invest in its streaming service, Paramount+. Producer Tyler Perry and Los Angeles-based media mogul Byron Allen have both expressed interest in buying a majority stake in the TV network, possibly setting off a bidding war for the Black entertainment monolith.