Julie Chen Moonves

Julie Suzanne Chen Moonves (née Chen; born January 6, 1970) is an American television personality, news anchor, and producer for CBS. She has been the host of the American version of the CBS reality-television program Big Brother since its debut in July 2000.

From 2002 to 2010, she was a co-anchor of The Early Show on CBS. In 2004, Chen married CBS executive Les Moonves. Starting in 2010, Chen Moonves was a co-host and the moderator of the CBS Daytime talk show The Talk, until 2018 when she left the show following multiple sexual assault and sexual harassment allegations against her husband Les Moonves that came to light. Following this, she began using her married name with the September 13, 2018 episode of Big Brother, signing off with, "I'm Julie Chen Moonves, goodnight." This broke her established pattern of previously signing off simply as, "Julie Chen".

In 2018, Chen Moonves authored her first children's book, When I Grow Up, dedicated to her son, Charlie.

Early life and education

The daughter of Chinese immigrants, Julie Chen was born in Queens, New York City. Chen's mother, Wang Ling Chen, grew up in Rangoon, Burma. Her father, David Chen, was born in China, and subsequently fled to Taiwan following the Chinese Civil War. Chen's maternal grandfather, Lou Gaw Tong, grew up "dirt poor" in the rural village of Penglai in Fujian province of China, and became wealthy through a chain of grocery stores and ultimately became a polygamist with nine wives and 11 children. Julie has two older sisters, Gladys and Victoria.