LEA MICHELE TO GUEST MENTOR PREMIERE EPISODE OF OXYGEN'S "THE GLEE PROJECT" SEASON TWO

Critically Lauded "The Glee Project" to Return to Oxygen This Summer

NEW YORK - January 23, 2012 - Lea Michele will join Oxygen's critically acclaimed series "The Glee Project" as the guest mentor for its premiere episode. In a tweet sent Saturday to her over 1.5 million followers on Twitter, Michele wrote, "So excited to announce that I'll be guest mentoring on the season 2 premiere of 'The Glee Project!'" The second season of the series began filming earlier this week in Los Angeles, and Michele is the first guest mentor to be revealed. As announced earlier this week, Oxygen picked up a second season of "The Glee Project" to return summer 2012.

Michele has played Rachel Berry on "Glee" for all three of its seasons and was honored with both an Emmy(R) nomination for "Outstanding Lead Actress in a Comedy Series" and two Golden Globe(R) nominations for "Best Television Actress - Comedy or Musical" along with a 2010 Teen Choice Award for "Choice TV Actress - Comedy" and a 2009 nomination for "Choice TV: Breakout Star Female" Category.

"The Glee Project" season one was recently nominated for a GLAAD Media Award in the category of "Outstanding Reality Series." The show, which awards one winner a seven episode arc on "Glee," will return with Ryan Murphy and Dante Di Loreto as executive producers along with series executive producers Michael Davies and Shauna Minoprio of Embassy Row. Season two of "The Glee Project" will air on Oxygen this summer with 14 contenders -- two more than season one -- additional themes and all new music. Second season casting recently wrapped up, with thousands of hopefuls auditioning online and in a multi-city casting tour. Murphy will once again join casting director Robert Ulrich, choreographer and "Glee" co-producer Zach Woodlee and vocal coach Nikki Anders in the final deliberations of each installment of the series.

About Oxygen Media

Oxygen Media is a multiplatform lifestyle brand that delivers relevant and engaging content to young women who like to "live out loud." Oxygen is rewriting the rulebook for women's media by changing how the world sees entertainment from a young woman's point of view. Through a vast array of unconventional and original content including " The Glee Project," "Bad Girls Club," "Hair Battle Spectacular," and "Tori & Dean: Home Sweet Hollywood," the growing cable network is the premiere destination to find unique and groundbreaking unscripted programming. A social media trendsetter, Oxygen is a leading force in engaging modern young women, wherever they are, with popular, award winning features online including www.OxygenLive.com, the real time social viewing party that is also available as an app for the iPhone and iPad, as well as innovative tools shopOholic and makeOvermatic. Oxygen is available in 77 million homes, and can be found online and on mobile devices at www.oxygen.com. Follow us on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/OxygenPR. Oxygen Media is a service of NBCUniversal.