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0:52

Welcome to In Her Shoes. I'm Lindsay

0:54

Peeples, and I'm Editor-in-Chief of The Cut. On

0:56

this show, I get to talk to people that we love

0:58

and admire, or some that we just find

1:01

interesting. We'll explore how they

1:03

found their path and what maybe have gotten

1:05

in their way, and how they brought others along

1:07

now that they've

1:08

arrived.

1:13

Deborah Lee is truly in a league of her

1:15

own. With over 30 years

1:17

of experience in the entertainment business, she

1:20

was often one of the first and only

1:22

women in the room.

1:23

As the former CEO of BET, she

1:26

was at the forefront of curating Black culture with

1:28

fidelity. Now she

1:30

finally gets a chance to tell her own story. On

1:33

this episode, we talk to her about her new memoir,

1:36

I Am Deborah Lee, which details her

1:38

rise to the top and the struggles along the way. Deborah,

1:41

thank you so much for joining us.

1:44

On this show, we always ask about the literal

1:46

shoes on the feet of our guests. So

1:48

tell me either, I know

1:50

you're at home, so tell me either what kind of shoes you're

1:52

wearing right now, or shoes that

1:55

are your favorite

1:56

currently in your wardrobe. Okay,

1:59

well right now I'm wearing Ugg slippers,

2:01

because I won't slip

2:04

on the stairs, my wooden

2:06

stairs, I had a fall. But

2:08

my favorite shoes,

2:12

right now I'm more

2:14

into Altarissa,

2:16

is that the way you pronounce it? Altazar.

2:19

Altazar. They have nice pumps

2:22

and I've been wearing a lot of their things.

2:24

My favorite pair, I must say for the book

2:27

tour, I got a pair of

2:29

Kite

2:30

patent leather boots. Oh

2:32

my god, they're so comfortable

2:35

and so they go over the knee

2:37

and they look great with everything. So

2:39

I would go with the Kite patent leather

2:41

boots.

2:42

Yeah, okay. So you've been in the industry now

2:44

for over 30 years, obviously,

2:48

now in your own

2:50

capacity doing something very different. Why

2:53

did you feel like right now was the right time

2:55

for you to move into a different chapter and tell

2:57

your own story?

2:58

Well, four years

3:00

ago, I stepped down from BET.

3:04

And at that point,

3:07

I had been with the company 32 years,

3:10

and I have been CEO for 13 years.

3:13

And I had accomplished

3:16

almost everything I wanted to accomplish at

3:18

BET. So I stepped down

3:20

and then, you know,

3:22

retirement has been very busy, but

3:25

I knew I always wanted to write a book. And

3:28

so I thought this was a great time. And

3:30

the other thing that helped was COVID.

3:34

That kept me home and off a plane

3:36

for two and a half years. So

3:38

that was a good time to write it. And I figured

3:42

stepping down from BET was

3:44

a good ending to the book. You

3:46

know, it starts with my

3:48

childhood, but thinking

3:50

about where to end it, it

3:53

was a good ending.

3:54

And so that's why I did it. I always wanted

3:56

to do it. And then also when

3:58

I stepped down, I noticed

3:59

looking around, there are very few

4:02

still black female

4:04

CEOs. And

4:08

I found that disturbing. And

4:10

I was like, why is there not more of us? So

4:13

that gave me extra push to

4:15

write the book and tell my story and

4:18

kind of look at some of the issues that we

4:20

face as women in the

4:22

C-suite and as black women.

4:25

And I

4:25

think that's actually what I kind of want

4:28

to talk about my next question because when you are a

4:30

black woman, I

4:32

think in so many of these roles, you are often the only one and

4:34

you've been such a trailblazer

4:37

for women and women of color in the industry, particularly

4:40

black women working in entertainment. Tell

4:42

me a bit about what that was like starting out in

4:45

being the only one and trying to make a name for

4:47

yourself. Right, it was challenging

4:49

but exciting.

4:50

I

4:53

started out as a lawyer and I talk

4:56

about in my book, I Am W. Lee, that I never

4:58

wanted to be a lawyer. It was really

5:00

my father's desire. So when

5:02

I came out of law school, I clerked for a year and

5:05

then I went to a big law firm because

5:07

I thought I was going

5:08

into government, but the Republicans won

5:11

and I didn't want to go into a Republican

5:13

administration. So I went to a law firm, stayed

5:15

for about five and a half years

5:19

and I was a lawyer.

5:21

I was a lawyer for

5:23

about five and a half years. And then it was

5:25

time to really decide what I wanted to do

5:27

in life. And luckily BET was a client.

5:30

They knew my work and I had done some outside counsel

5:32

work for

5:34

them for a couple of years. And

5:37

Bob Johnson offered me position

5:39

as vice president in general

5:41

counsel. I was always

5:44

interested in the communications industry and

5:46

in media. That was

5:48

kind of hard to do in Washington. So as I was leaving the

5:51

firm, I did a lot of interviewing in New

5:53

York, but I wasn't really ready for New York. I

5:56

liked Washington.

6:00

So when Bob Johnson offered me the job, I was

6:03

like, well, this is perfect. You know, I can still

6:05

practice law. I can join

6:07

a communications slash media

6:11

company.

6:11

It's in cable, which was

6:13

very new at the time. I went to BET

6:16

in 1986, and at that time they didn't

6:18

even have cable in DC. So

6:20

people thought I was falling off the face of the earth. They

6:22

were like, you're doing what? So

6:25

it was just perfect. And

6:27

a good way for me to enter the

6:30

industry. And then

6:33

almost immediately I started

6:35

doing a hybrid

6:37

of legal work and business, and

6:40

found out I was more interested in the business

6:42

side.

6:44

So when I got in the business side, that's

6:46

when it really became clear.

6:49

I was a unicorn. You know,

6:52

I joined a couple of boards. I'd be the only

6:54

black person in the room, the only black

6:56

woman. Sometimes the only woman. When

6:59

I remember, and you would appreciate this, when

7:01

I went on the Revlon board many years

7:04

ago, I replaced

7:06

Martha Stewart because she

7:08

was going to prison.

7:09

But

7:12

it was true. And I

7:14

was only the second woman on the Revlon

7:17

board. And I always thought that was so amazing,

7:19

because we would sit in board meetings and

7:22

talk about colors of lipstick

7:24

and packaging. You know,

7:26

marketing people would come in and pass products

7:28

around. And you had all these men commenting

7:31

on it. And I was like, well, what do they really

7:33

know? I mean, I know they

7:34

know what they like and what they see. But

7:38

over time, by the time I left the Revlon board,

7:40

it was about 50% women. And

7:42

eventually Ron Perlman's daughter took

7:45

over as CEO. So yeah,

7:48

that was a big move. But

7:50

it's still, it's still, what

7:53

I say, it's still lonely at the top, and

7:56

especially for black women. Yeah.

8:00

that though, did you have any sense of imposter

8:02

syndrome when you were starting out

8:05

in the industry and how did you combat that?

8:07

That's a great question. At

8:10

first, I didn't because I was working

8:11

at a black company. So

8:13

that was helpful. You take race off

8:16

the table until we went out and tried

8:18

to borrow money or when

8:20

we went public. But

8:24

I was surrounded by people that look like me.

8:26

Then when I was appointed COO,

8:29

I realized that

8:31

it was still unusual for a woman

8:33

to be COO, even at a black company.

8:36

The women were high fiving me in the halls

8:39

and they were so happy. And they said, oh, we never

8:41

thought this would happen at BET. It's

8:43

such a boys club. And

8:45

you're so nice. That

8:47

amazed a lot of people. How

8:50

can you be so successful and

8:52

be nice? So I started

8:54

thinking of it in that terms. I think

8:56

the biggest case

8:59

of imposter syndrome I've had

9:02

in my life

9:04

was when I went to Harvard Law School.

9:06

One, I was a little

9:08

intimidated by the name, Harvard.

9:11

Two, a white woman who lived

9:14

across the hall from me at Brown,

9:16

who I've become friendly with,

9:19

she did not get into Harvard. And

9:21

she told me that I got in because

9:23

of affirmative action.

9:25

And it's kind of

9:28

weird that I remember that 50 years

9:30

later or however long it's been. But

9:32

that had an impact on me. And when I

9:34

got there, I looked around.

9:36

Everyone

9:37

was valedictorian

9:39

in their class from college. There

9:42

were a lot of people

9:43

in my section who would raise their

9:46

hand to volunteer. Each section

9:48

at Harvard Law is about 140 people.

9:52

All the professors call on people. So

9:54

it's scary, especially for an introvert

9:57

like me. I didn't like speaking in big

9:59

groups of people.

11:59

And we didn't have those kind of resources.

12:02

We didn't have a lot of live shows

12:05

until we finally had 106 and

12:08

Park, and that was live. And

12:11

so we always had to think

12:13

about the community, and the black

12:15

community is pretty conservative

12:17

community, truth

12:19

be told. So we had problems

12:21

with videos, a lot of people

12:23

didn't like the videos. We

12:27

had a show called Uncut

12:28

that showed kind of explicit

12:30

videos, and that- I remember Uncut.

12:33

Yeah. That was the first thing

12:35

I canceled when I became CEO. I

12:37

said, I'm not taking the flack for Uncut,

12:41

because I never watched

12:43

it before I became CEO, because

12:46

I'd never up that late. But

12:49

it was just, the community was just

12:52

down on us because of that. And then

12:54

Nellie's video, Tip Drill came

12:56

along. One time I went to Spelman

12:58

and I thought the women there were gonna

12:59

tar and feather me because

13:02

of Tip Drill. And I was like, look, I'm

13:04

not even CEO yet. I'll deal

13:06

with it when I'm CEO. So it was the first

13:08

thing I canceled. But then in my

13:11

book, I talk about the protestors

13:14

outside my house

13:14

for seven months. And it was caused

13:17

by a local minister who

13:19

wanted me to take off three

13:22

specific videos. And

13:24

I said to him, I have a Standards

13:27

and Practices Committee,

13:30

they review every video, they send

13:32

them back to the label to be edited.

13:35

And if there's a real problem, they bring it to

13:37

me. And I make a final decision. And

13:39

I said, I can't let you decide

13:42

what videos go on BET. And

13:44

if I let you take off three this month,

13:47

you'll be back with three next month.

13:50

Right, yeah. He was not happy about

13:52

that. So he

13:52

bust his congregation to my house

13:55

every Saturday for seven months. And

13:57

they would stand outside with bull horns.

14:00

yelling, I am not a bitch, I'm not a hoe.

14:04

And it didn't make my neighbors too happy. Luckily,

14:06

I had a gate around

14:09

my house. They couldn't get too close. But

14:11

it was really disturbing because I felt

14:14

I was trying to do the right thing. When

14:16

I became CEO, I made a pledge

14:18

to the audience that I would do more original

14:21

programming. And

14:24

Viacom had acquired us. We had more

14:26

resources. So I

14:28

was in the midst of rebranding

14:31

the company, getting more

14:33

staff who knew about original

14:35

programming so I could do shows

14:37

like The Game and Be a Marriage Jane

14:40

and New Edition Story.

14:42

But that took a while. And so

14:44

it was really disheartening

14:46

to me to be in the midst of

14:48

that controversy. And I always

14:51

say I didn't go to Harvard Law School to

14:52

decide what videos should

14:55

go on a network. That wasn't my choice.

14:57

But here I am, and it's part of my job.

15:00

And the first real stand

15:02

I took against a video was Kanye

15:05

West's Flashing Lights.

15:08

And the woman was scantily clad.

15:10

She had Kanye

15:12

in the trunk. She pulled him out

15:15

of the trunk and I think beat him to death. And

15:17

I just said, I'm not airing this on

15:20

BET. And my music

15:22

programming folks were like, Kanye

15:24

is a genius and he's going to be mad

15:26

and he's going to call you. And I said, well,

15:29

let him call me. He wasn't out there counter-protesting

15:33

or helping me

15:34

when all these people were outside

15:36

my house. So they took it all. And

15:38

then, oh, the other feedback was, well,

15:41

MTV is airing. And I was like,

15:43

well, they're not setting the standards

15:45

for our community. And

15:48

they have a different audience. Anyway,

15:50

I took it off. Kanye never called,

15:53

never called, never mentioned it to me. And

15:57

at that point, I said, if I'm going to be the only

15:59

adult.

15:59

in the room, I'm going to

16:01

make the decisions. So if it goes

16:03

bad, I don't feel bad about it.

16:06

And so I did. I started being a little tougher

16:10

on videos. When I took

16:12

over as CEO, the programming

16:15

was 60% music

16:15

videos. And

16:18

that was the legacy from us just not

16:20

having money for programming. And

16:22

videos were free. And

16:26

when Janet Jackson and Michael

16:28

Jackson made those incredible videos

16:30

they were making, the record labels

16:33

were spending $1 million to $2 million on

16:35

videos. So no

16:38

one could say it was cheap programming. And

16:40

by the time I left BET,

16:43

we had no music videos.

16:45

We were still committed to music

16:47

through our award shows and documentaries

16:50

and even reality shows we did

16:52

like Keisha Cole. But

16:55

we knew we were different from other

16:57

networks. And our brand was to

16:59

respect, reflect, and

17:01

elevate our audience. And that's

17:04

what we tried to do with everything that

17:06

we did. And we knew it was important

17:08

to our audience. But we also knew

17:10

our audience had tougher standards.

17:12

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19:54

for

20:00

the first episode of the game. The

20:03

game had been off the air for

20:05

two years.

20:06

Before that it was on the CW and it got

20:08

about a million five viewers.

20:11

So to have it come to BET

20:14

for us to produce it ourselves at

20:16

the same level of quality

20:19

that CBS was producing it because

20:21

they were the production company.

20:23

And to get that many viewers

20:25

just proved that if you

20:27

do high quality authentic

20:29

programming our audience will

20:31

show up. And a lot of

20:34

other networks have learned that now. You

20:36

know, a lot of networks have a black

20:38

knight, you know, like Bravo

20:41

or Wii. The streaming services

20:43

definitely understand that. Netflix

20:46

is amazing in the

20:48

amount of black programming

20:51

they have on. And

20:53

so it's a great

20:55

time to be a viewer, a black viewer because

20:59

there are more choices. And

21:02

I assume that's taken less pressure off

21:04

of BET but I'm not

21:06

sure.

21:08

You do have

21:10

a chapter in the book called What Balance? And I

21:12

think with all of this pressure and responsibility

21:15

so many women feel, you know, in

21:17

high powered roles but also

21:19

just trying to have a life outside of work as

21:22

well. How did you make

21:24

peace with trying to find balance but

21:26

also just understanding that certain things were

21:28

going to take precedent over others in

21:30

certain seasons of your life? I don't

21:32

think I ever made peace with it. I think I

21:34

just tried to do the best I could. And

21:38

luckily I had a lot of resources.

21:40

By the time I was CEO I was making lots

21:42

of money. And at one point

21:44

I always tell this to women, I had

21:46

four people working for me at home. I

21:49

had a house manager and I

21:51

was single divorced by this time. I

21:53

had a house manager, a chef, a

21:55

babysitter and a housekeeper.

21:58

And then I had people working for me at work. So

22:00

I had a really great support

22:03

system,

22:04

but I could afford it.

22:06

I also could afford

22:08

to, you know, take the company plane

22:11

and do a red-eye trip from LA

22:13

to DC so I could make

22:15

the holiday

22:16

program for my kids. I

22:18

think one of the most outlandish

22:21

examples is I had

22:23

had surgery, so this wasn't even a work

22:25

instance, but my daughter was

22:27

in junior

22:28

high and she was in a semi-finals

22:31

game, and I really felt

22:33

bad I was going to miss it. But being

22:36

in the media, I sent a camera crew

22:39

to film it. So

22:41

you do what you have to do. I mean,

22:44

there are certain events as a mother

22:46

with your children or a father. You

22:48

just know you have to meet. Back-to-school

22:51

night

22:51

is once a year, so as soon as I got

22:53

the dates for that, I put it on my calendar and

22:55

block it off. I couldn't do anything else. I had to be in town

22:57

for back-to-school night.

23:00

The same with Halloween parade

23:03

or holiday programs. And

23:05

the other thing I tried to do was get my kids

23:07

involved in my work. So

23:11

if I had a speech on the weekend, I might

23:13

take my son or daughter. They always

23:15

came with me to Kids' Choice Awards

23:17

and then eventually

23:18

BET Awards and the Grammys.

23:22

And both of their first jobs

23:24

and their first careers were in

23:26

the music industry. So some of

23:28

it rubbed off, but

23:29

I wanted them to see what I was doing

23:32

and get the perks in addition

23:34

to having me travel a lot. So

23:37

I'd say it's like a seesaw just goes up

23:39

and down, and you

23:42

hope that there's nothing so

23:44

critical

23:44

that you have

23:46

to miss something that's important to your kids.

23:50

All right. Tell me about a time

23:52

where you remember making sacrifices

23:55

for your family and personal life because

23:57

of work life. Just

24:00

being away from home a lot, not

24:03

being able to do homework. A mother asked

24:05

me the other day, well, did you do homework? No,

24:07

I didn't do homework. I could not

24:09

be at home for that.

24:10

If I was

24:12

in the city, I was probably late. But

24:14

I made sure I hired

24:17

babysitters who were teachers.

24:19

And

24:23

they would come in and help with the homework.

24:26

So there are some things like that I missed.

24:29

I tried to be there. And if I couldn't, I

24:32

tried to do a workaround

24:34

of some sort. For

24:37

holidays, I was always there for

24:39

birthdays. But

24:42

the overall travel schedule

24:44

I had

24:45

was tough.

24:47

It was tough on me. It was tough on the

24:49

kids.

24:50

And especially after I got divorced. But

24:54

to this day, my daughter is best friends

24:57

with many of her babysitters. She's

24:59

starting to go to

25:00

their weddings and meet their babies.

25:03

And so I'm not saying it was perfect.

25:05

But you do the best you can. Yeah.

25:10

You've also talked about the tough relationship

25:12

that you had with Bob Johnson and

25:14

how isolating that was. And

25:17

getting out of that situation, how did you finally

25:19

get to the other side and

25:22

build up the strength to be able to talk

25:23

about it and be so vulnerable about that? Yeah.

25:25

Well, it took a long time to be able

25:27

to talk about it. I talk

25:30

about it in my book.

25:32

And I talk about how Bob was a great

25:35

mentor to me and gave me a lot of opportunities

25:38

and pushed me and appointed

25:40

me as COO, which

25:42

led to me being CEO. But

25:45

for a time, as I talk about in

25:47

my book, we had a personal relationship.

25:51

And that was tough. Well, first of all,

25:53

becoming a COO was tough, because

25:56

all my friends were my peers. And

25:58

when I became COO, I was a mentor.

25:59

Oh, that put me above

26:02

them and there went all my friends,

26:05

you know, because I found out half of them

26:07

had asked for the job I didn't even know there

26:09

was a job but all the men had at most

26:11

of the men had asked for the job So

26:13

they weren't so happy they were more Aligned

26:18

with Bob because he had hired them. So

26:20

that was very isolating It

26:23

took me six years to build my own

26:26

team and that was way too long

26:29

one of the first mistakes Bob made was telling

26:31

them I could not fire them and

26:34

that was Devastating to

26:36

me as a manager because you have to have

26:38

that ability to terminate people If

26:41

they start acting up, you know, you can't not

26:44

have that that tool in your toolbox

26:47

And then after Bob and I started having

26:49

a personal

26:50

relationship that made it more

26:52

isolating and And It

26:55

was it was difficult and we

26:57

eventually both got divorced at

27:00

different times And

27:02

it became public that we were having

27:04

a relationship And

27:07

that was even more difficult, you know, we had to

27:09

we had to let the company know Because

27:11

they had a business conduct

27:13

conduct policy that said no one

27:15

that reports to another person Should

27:18

be involved in a personal relationship. So

27:20

we had to

27:22

Disclose it and then over

27:24

time you know with

27:27

most relationships you start having disagreements

27:30

and And ours was

27:32

you know on the personal side and the work side

27:36

and so the relationship

27:38

became abusive and And

27:42

also harassment because at times

27:45

the relationship was tied to our personal

27:47

relationship Bob would say well, you can

27:49

break up with me, but you have to leave tomorrow and You

27:53

know I could just see my career blowing

27:55

up in smoke and me having to leave

27:58

a company that I had been at 20 years

28:02

with no reference and

28:04

probably a little ability

28:06

to get a job somewhere

28:07

else. So I talk about that because

28:09

that's not your typical Me Too

28:12

story.

28:13

When Me Too and Time's Up came

28:15

out, it was more about guys

28:18

who were in hotel rooms doing

28:21

horrible things to women. And

28:23

that was not my

28:24

story, but I wanted young

28:26

girls to know even

28:28

what felt like a consensual

28:31

relationship could really not

28:33

be if the power structure

28:36

was different. And that's what

28:38

happened in my case. I

28:41

think it was consensual from the stop, but I

28:43

know in the back of my mind, I always

28:45

had to think about, well, if I

28:47

say no, what's going to happen to my job?

28:50

The power dynamic

28:52

was off. Very much so. So

28:55

I wanted to especially tell that

28:57

story. So

29:00

young people, boys and girls, men

29:02

and women, know what to look for. And

29:05

no, nine times out of 10

29:06

office romances just don't work

29:09

for

29:11

many reasons. And when they

29:13

don't work, you have to be prepared

29:16

to deal with it.

29:18

And what do you felt like gave you the

29:20

strength to be able to move past

29:22

that and just be confident in your own

29:24

abilities and your work? Well,

29:27

over time, I became more confident

29:29

in my role as COO.

29:33

I knew Bob was going to leave at some

29:35

point because he had only signed a five-year

29:38

agreement. And he was already starting

29:40

to do other things. He had bought a basketball team

29:42

and other things.

29:44

So I

29:46

became more confident in my own voice,

29:49

had my own ideas about how BET

29:52

should be run, which caused more conflict.

29:55

But

29:55

I was just getting stronger in my

29:57

position. And the other thing, I'll

29:59

be honest.

29:59

that really helped me was therapy. One

30:03

of my girlfriends looked at me one day and

30:05

she said, Deb, you need to go

30:06

talk to somebody. And I

30:08

never even thought about that. Because

30:12

I didn't think I was depressed. I didn't think I

30:14

had, you know, other issues, but I, you

30:17

know, she gave me a name of someone, I went to her

30:19

and she told me I

30:20

was depressed and that I had probably

30:22

had anxiety all my life. She

30:25

said, then that's why you've been so successful because

30:27

you study so much and you're so afraid

30:30

of, you know, failing

30:31

and you're anxious.

30:34

And I think a lot of us have that and don't really

30:36

know it. And so the therapy

30:39

really helped me a lot and gave me the courage

30:40

to break off the

30:43

relationship. After Bob

30:45

was gone, I had become CEO,

30:48

but gave me the courage to

30:50

break off the relationship and not

30:53

be swayed by, you know,

30:55

anything anybody else was saying,

30:57

that this was not good for me

30:59

and I should get out of it. So

31:01

what do you hope to see for other young

31:04

black women coming up in the industry now?

31:07

In the music industry

31:09

or? Or just in media. Right. Well,

31:11

I hope to see more black women in the C-suite

31:14

and going up the corporate ladder. I

31:16

would love to see more black women green

31:19

lighting programs. And

31:22

that's happening to a certain extent

31:24

and more black female directors.

31:26

So I want to see us more involved in the creative

31:29

process. That's the only way we're going to have authentic

31:31

programming. And

31:34

that's happening. But, you

31:35

know, I'd like to see more CEOs

31:37

just because I've been in the corporate world for so

31:40

long. So I'd like to see more COOs,

31:42

CEOs, head of marketing. I

31:44

want our younger women or

31:47

girls to see images

31:49

of everything

31:51

with them in it. That they can be,

31:53

you know, doctors, lawyers, head of magazines,

31:58

artists, CEOs. So

32:00

I want our young people to be able to

32:02

dream big and know they can do anything

32:05

And I want them to have the opportunities to

32:08

do that.

32:09

I love that. Thank you so much. That was so great.

32:11

Oh, thank you

32:16

In her shoes is hosted by me Lindsay people's our

32:19

producer and editor for this episode is

32:21

takas in Our engineer is Brandon

32:24

McFarland and our executive producer is Hannah

32:26

frozen The cut is made possible by

32:28

the excellent team at New York magazine subscribe

32:31

today at the cut comm slash subscribe

32:34

I'm Lindsay people's and thank you so much for listening

32:50

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