Lifetime programming chief Brie Miranda Bryant exits after nine years, signs first-look deal
Brie Miranda Bryant is leaving Lifetime after more than nine years at the network. She will keep working with its parent organisation, A+E Global Media, under a first-look deal, meaning the company gets first refusal on her new ideas in scripted and factual programming. Deadline reported the exit on 22 September 2026.
Bryant held the post of senior vice-president of original programming. She joined A+E Global Media in 2017 after earlier roles at BET Networks and NBCUniversal. Nine years is a long run in cable television. It covers several commissioning cycles and hundreds of hours on air.
Her slate centred on unscripted, meaning shows built around real people rather than actors and scripts. That included The Prison Confessions of Gypsy Rose Blanchard, I Am Octomom and The Chrisleys: Back to Reality. She was also behind Surviving R. Kelly, the Janet Jackson documentary, TLC Forever and The Life and Murder of Nicole Brown Simpson.
Lifetime said Bryant will not be replaced. After her departure the network has no senior executives overseeing unscripted. The change follows a cutback to Lifetime's unscripted programming division in August 2025, which led to layoffs among unscripted staff, as reported by The Hollywood Reporter.
Her first project under the new deal is already set. Bryant joins the executive producing team for Christmas: Married and Bright, an executive producer being the senior boss who oversees creative decisions and budget. The film is a sequel to Brandy Norwood's 2025 holiday movie for the network.
Earlier in her tenure, Bryant served alongside Amy Winter and Shura Davison as a Lifetime executive producer on a Women in Entertainment special presented with The Hollywood Reporter. She also shared executive producer credit with Jesse Daniels on Surviving R. Kelly Part 2: The Reckoning.
For viewers, this means a familiar name moves from inside the building to outside it. The shows she ordered are finished and on air. The next test is what she brings back through that first-look door.
