And after 13 years as CEO of BET and 32 with the network overall, she’s got stories to tell — in her memoir and on the Cut podcast this week.
Debra: No. No one’s ever asked Oprah why she doesn’t put on news. No one in the media industry has had the kind of pressure we do. Then, when we were in the family with Viacom, MTV and VH1 were in the family. VH1 was doing a lot of Black reality programming that I knew we couldn’t air on BET. I had the executives at Viacom say, “This is getting good ratings at VH1. Why can’t you air it?” I had to explain to them that our audience wanted different things.
The other thing I tried to do was get my kids involved in my work. If I had to give a speech, I might take my son or daughter. They always came with me to Kids’ Choice Awards, and eventually the BET Awards and Grammys. Both of their first jobs were in the music industry. Some of it rubbed off, but I wanted them to see what I was doing and get the perks in addition to having me travel a lot. So, I’d say it’s like a seesaw. It just goes up and down.
One of the first mistakes Bob made was telling them I could not fire them. That was devastating to me as a manager, because you have to have that ability to terminate people if they start acting up. You can’t not have that tool in your toolbox. Then, after Bob and I started having a personal relationship, that made it more isolating. It was difficult. We eventually both got divorced at different times. It became public that we were having a relationship, and that was even more difficult.
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