How Old Is Julie Chen Moonves and Is She Still Doing ‘Big Brother’?
Beautiful Julie Chen Moonves has been mocked for her heritage and insulted for standing by her man. Best known for her role as the host of CBS’ reality show, Big Brother, Chen Moonves has had an interesting career, to say the least. How old is she and will she return to Big Brother?
How old is Julie Chen Moonves?
Chen Moonves is 49 years old. She was born to Chinese immigrants in Queens, New York, on January 6th, 1970. On a 2014 episode of The Talk, Chen Moonves revealed that her grandfather was a polygamist. He grew up “dirt poor” in a small village in China, and worked his way up with a chain of grocery stores. Eventually, he was a wealthy man with nine wives. Chen Moonves’ grandmother was his first wife.
Julie Chen Moonves’ career
Her career began as an intern for CBS Morning News in 1990, where she answered phones and copied faxes. She worked hard and was promoted to a desk assistant at ABC NewsOne and then a producer of the same show.
In 1995, she moved to Dayton, Ohio and worked as a local news reporter. In Dayton, her director advised her that she would never become a news anchor, because of her “asian eyes.” In 2013, Chen Moonves revealed her experience on an episode of The Talk. She said she asked the producer if she would be able to fill in for one of the anchors if they took a vacation.
According to Chen Moonves, this was his response, “You will never be on this anchor desk, because you’re Chinese,” he said. “Let’s face it, Julie, how relatable are you to our community? How big of an Asian community do we have in Dayton? On top of that, because of your heritage, because of your Asian eyes, sometimes I’ve noticed when you’re on camera and you’re interviewing someone, you look disinterested, you look bored.”
Understandably, Chen Moonves was hurt and upset by these comments. But because her career was important to her, and she felt it was the only option, Chen Moonves had plastic surgery to reduce the epicanthic folds of her eyes, and make them appear larger.
After that, her career took off. She became the anchor of CBS Morning News in 1999, and then held several anchor and co-host positions with various news shows, including The Early Show on CBS, and the daytime talk show, The Talk. In 2000, Chen Moonves took on a slightly different role, as the host of the popular reality show, Big Brother.
Julie Chen Moonves’ marriage scandal
Chen Moonves began dating the president and chief executive director, Les Moonves, while he was still married to his wife and mother of their three children, Nancy Wiesenfeld. Later, Wiesenfeld would tell the New York Daily News about her ex-husband’s affair, “I felt that everybody knew about what was going on [between Moonves and Chen] And everybody did know. Except me,” she said. “I knew our marriage would end eventually, but the way it happened was not correct, it was not moral.”
Less than two weeks after his divorce was finalized, Chen and Moonves married. They exchanged vows in Acapulco, Mexico. She was 34 years old at the time, and he was 55.
14 years later, in 2018, 12 women accused her husband, Les Moonves, of sexual harassment. The allegations dated back to before he was married to Chen Moonves and involved forcible touching that was said to occur during business meetings.
Chen Moonves stood by her husband during the entire scandal. Even reinforcing her dedication to him by adding Moonves to her professional name. Beginning during the 20th season of Big Brother, she began signing off the show, by saying, “I’m Julie Chen Moonves. Goodnight,” where before, she had always said, “I’m Julie Chen. Goodnight.”
Will Julie Chen Moonves return to ‘Big Brother’?
CBS announced that Big Brother would return for its 21st season, hosted again by Chen Moonves. The two-night premiere is set to air June 25th and June 26th. For fans of Chen Moonves, this is welcome news. The summer of 2019 should be a good one.
