Lifetime finds success in telling true, sensitive stories

During the #MeToo movement in 2017, Brie Miranda Bryant and her team at A+E Networks were commissioned to create an hour-long roundtable documentary specifically about the awareness campaign.

As senior vice president of Lifetime Original Programming, Bryant was told to make sure the documentary “resonated after the hour was up.”

“It was such a mystery,” she says now. “I just thought…how?” So she called former Bunim-Murray Prods. CEO Gil Goldschein and asked him to pitch her a document he thought she would never buy. That pitch turned out to be “Surviving R. Kelly.” The roundtable discussion was cancelled.

In “Surviving R. Kelly,” which aired in January 2019, Kelly’s victims were shown on camera to detail the sexual abuse they claimed they suffered at the hands of the singer. The original six-hour docuseries won a Peabody and ultimately led to Kelly’s 30-year prison sentence.

The series, which attracted more than 26 million viewers, was the start of Lifetime’s documentary success story. Since “Surviving R. Kelly,” the network has greenlit and aired thirteen documentaries that not only tap into the cultural zeitgeist but also become instant watercooler sensations. This year, Lifetime released four docuseries: Emmy contenders “Where Is Wendy Williams?” and “The Prison Confessions of Gypsy Rose Blanchard,” followed by June’s debut “The Life & Murder of Nicole Brown Simpson,” “Gypsy Rose: Life After Lock Up.”

Melissa Moore was executive producer of both “The Life & Murder of Nicole Brown Simpson” and “Prison Confessions of Gypsy Rose Blanchard,” a six-hour docuseries featuring Blanchard, a victim of Munchhausen Syndrome by proxy, who was horrifically abused and made national headlines for her role in the violent murder of her mother.

Moore worked for seven years to get the series made and knew there still had to be a doc about Blanchard, despite the fact that “Mommy Dead and Dearest,” which chronicled her abuse, was made in 2017. While Gypsy was in prison for years, we kept in touch and I began to realize that her story was just beginning, because she was becoming her own person,” says Moore. “She gained her own voice and learned who she was outside of the abuse, codependency and her mother’s thumb. She was raised by other inmates, so it was a coming-of-age story set in prison. I knew there was a documentary about that.”

Moore called Blanchard every week for years and recorded their conversations. Those conversations were featured in the series, which premiered in January and reached 9.9 million viewers. She attributes the success to Blanchard’s unusual background.

“She’s unlike anyone we’ve ever seen,” Moore says. “She is both a victim and a perpetrator, which is contrary to us as human beings. She was raised by a master manipulator and used those manipulation tactics to survive alongside her mother. Then she had to let go of those manipulation tactics in order to live in a normal society, so I think that’s what’s fascinating. She has survived a very abnormal life and is now trying to find a normal life.”

Bryant adds, “There is something about Gypsy that is extremely vulnerable, and she is extremely transparent about her circumstances.”

Moore says tragic stories like Brown Simpson and Blanchard resonate with audiences because they offer hope.

“They show us that we can overcome tragedy and trauma,” Moore says. “In a way, these stories encourage us to keep going through our darkest moments.”

Just a month after “Prison Confessions of Gypsy Rose Blanchard,” Lifetime began airing “Where Is Wendy Williams?” The two-part series, produced by Williams, chronicles the life of the former television host and radio star after the end of her popular talk show. The filming took place during a period when Williams was placed under financial tutelage. The series, which was released shortly after Williams’ team announced she had been diagnosed with primary progressive aphasia and frontotemporal dementia (FTD), attracted more than 8.2 million viewers.

Designed as a follow-up to her 2021 documentary, ‘Wendy Williams: What a Mess’ – which addressed her public divorce, apparent mental health crisis and other public mishaps – ‘Where Is Wendy Williams?’ was widely criticized for exploiting her cognitive decline.

But despite the controversy surrounding the series, Bryant says she doesn’t regret airing it.

“It should have been the way back to the purple seat,” she says, referring to Williams’ seat on her talk show, “and it wasn’t.”

Bryant adds, “But I wouldn’t change anything because I don’t think she would.”

“The Life & Murder of Nicole Brown Simpson” is sure to be another success story for Lifetime. The four-part series tells the story of Brown Simpson, the ex-wife of OJ Simpson, whom he was accused of murdering thirty years ago. Like all Lifetime docs, “Life & Murder” is not only a zeitgeist, but also contains numerous revelations that have generated many headlines.

Bryant says the secret sauce that makes all Lifetime docs successful is “reliability, consistency, and rootability, all combined at the same time.”

She adds: “Our documentaries are all a collection of information. They typically tap into the spirit of the times and peel back the layers of public opinion, while also leaning forward and being emotionally compelling.”

Jesse Daniels, senior vice president at Bunim-Murray, is a lifetime producer of “The Life & Murder of Nicole Brown Simpson” and “Surviving R. Kelly.” He says the network has figured out a way to create this
impactful, highly rated documentaries by thinking outside the box.

“Brie has gone through some really big changes, and that has definitely sparked a lot of conversations,” Daniels says. “Lifetime looks at stories that might be familiar and finds a way to tell those stories in a way you wouldn’t expect. Underneath it all is a message and a conversation that has ripple effects beyond the story itself. It’s a loud hook, but combined with that message, which makes for an important winning formula.”