All week long "The Talk" is doing a segment called "Big Secret" where each co-host reveals a big, dark secret. Julie Chen was the second co-host to dish her secret and revealed that she had plastic surgery to make her eyes look bigger, E! News reports.
The Chinese-American talk show host told the story of how her bosses felt she looked "too Asian" to get a job as a full-time news anchor.
"My secret dates back to - my heart is racing - it dates back to when I was 25 years old and I was working as a local news reporter in Dayton, Ohio," she said. "I asked my news director [if] over the holidays, if anchors want to take vacations, could I fill in and he said '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?'" she continued. "'On top of that, because of your Asian eyes, I've noticed that when you're on camera, you look disinterested and bored.'"
She said that comment stuck with her and she began to record her newscasts to see if her boss was right. Eventually, she told "The Talk" that she began looking for another job and she quickly discovered that other bosses had the same opinion about her appearance.
"This one big-time agent basically told me the same thing," she said. "He said, 'I cannot represent you unless you get plastic surgery to make your eyes look bigger.'"
Because anchoring was Chen's dream job the talk show host brought up the idea to her parents. Chen said her parents were not on-board with the idea at first but eventually decided to support her and pay for it. She did admit that it was a decision that divided her family but she doesn't regret it.
"After I had it done, the ball did roll for me," she said. "And I wondered, did I give in to the man?"
"I have to live with every decision that I've made," Chen said. "And it got me to where we are today. And I'm not going to look back."
