I don’t have much of an opinion about Julie Chen other than “she’s kind of annoying.” She doesn’t grate on my nerves to an extreme degree or anything, and she wouldn’t even make my Top 20 Annoying Celebrities list, but I sometimes watch The Talk (it’s on when I’m at the gym) and she is pretty annoying. She’s married Les Moonves, the president of CBS, so Chen often comes across as that well-connected trophy wife who thinks SHE is in charge of everything because her husband is so very important.
So, that was all background because I really don’t know what to think of Chen’s new admission that she had plastic surgery on her eyelids when she was first starting out in television. That kind of surgery has become increasingly popular in many Asian countries – the surgeons do something to the eyelids to make the eyes look more Anglo, wider, bigger.
Julie Chen’s secret is out. The hosts of The Talk have been sharing surprising revelations this week, and on Wednesday, Sept. 11, it was Chen’s turn to ‘fess up. Speaking with her co-hosts in what turned out to be an emotional episode, the veteran journalist disclosed that she had undergone plastic surgery nearly 20 years earlier in order to make her “Asian eyes” look bigger.
“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,” the 43-year-old Chinese-American television personality began. “I asked my news director 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 recalled. “‘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.'”
Not long after, Chen started looking for another job. But she ran into the same problem when she tried to find an agent to represent her. “This one big-time agent basically told me the same thing,” she revealed. “He said, ‘I cannot represent you unless you get plastic surgery to make your eyes look bigger.'”
Chen’s career was important to her, so she took the agent’s advice to heart and considered her options. “[My parents and I] had a long conversation about if it would be denying my heritage,” she said. “You know, my mom calls one auntie, my father calls an uncle…it spread to my entire family. It divided the family. Members of my family wanted to disown me if I got it done.”
Wanting to someday sit behind an anchor desk, she had the surgery anyway. And afterward, “the ball did roll” for her career, she confessed. “And I wondered, did I give in to the man?”
Regardless, she has no regrets. “No one’s more proud of being Chinese than I am,” she told her co-hosts. “And I have to live with the decisions I’ve made. Every decision I’ve made…it got [me] to where we are today, and I’m not going to look back.”
What a horrible story. Not for what she had done surgically – but for what her bosses and her agent told her! God. I can’t believe that’s really a “thing” that would have been (and perhaps still is?) discussed openly, like her boss would have told her that she didn’t have the right kind of eyes to be a TV anchor. As for the surgery she had… I don’t really see much of difference in her eyes. But I’m pretty sure she got a nose job at the same time, right? THAT is what is noticeable. Anyway, her body, her choice. And I can understand why she had the surgery if her g—damn bosses were telling her it would help her career.
Photos courtesy of WENN, The Talk.
I also find it really horrifying but at the same time I’m not surprised. That industry is so superficial, everyone is supposed to look the same and talk the same and etc. Still, it’s sad that she had to have surgery just to get a fair shake.
Julie Chen only talked about the eye surgery, but she has also had a nose job too.
Nose jobs are so common though.
I understand why she came out about the eyelid procedure, it’s a far more distinguishing physical characteristic for Asians.
This is a very common practice in eastern countries (I didn’t know about it until doing a research paper for a sociology course).
The lengths minorities go through for “wide appeal” are saddening-I’m still amazed when I find out an actor is Latino but changed their names because they won’t be invited to auditions (amazed but not surprised if that makes sense).
Honestly, I don’t think she had a nose job. Look at the pictures of her in the blue dress and the red dress-that’s the same nose as the ‘before’ picture.
The ‘after’ picture she chose to use has ALOT of makeup shading. Like drag queen level of shading to make her nose look smaller and more petite. The nostril size is still the same.
Gotta go with Gretchen on this one.
Some would say her surgery was shameful, some would say that the way she carried on with Les Moonnves for years while he was still married was shameless.
Between her Mother Hen act, Sheryl’s ‘we’re so icky, black people, aren’t we?’ shuffle and Aisha’s silent endorsement (at least there’s Lana Kane, but girlie, you kind of have a history there of talking about how not black black you are) I just can’t with that show.
*
I don’t know what to say, if you’re a minority in entertainment you don’t start of by convincing people you should get a job, you start by convincing people that you should be allowed to walk in.
I totally forgot about Sharon. Yipes, she’s almost as annoying as Kelly. I know y’all love her but I’m not feeling it.
I agree with L, I dont’ think she had her nose done. She used contour shading on the sides. The “before” picture, her nose is totally lit up and it emphasizes the roundness.
Ladies! PLEASE listen to BB. I don’t know whether y’all are bending over to be “racially sensitive” or PC or what, but the pictures tell the truth. Julie had a nose job! Deal with it.
I think everyone is expected to look the same because they are selling a ‘product’. It’s a business. What the media doesnt want people to know is that different people find different things beautiful and people can be beautiful in all sorts of different ways.
Yes, it’s a western beauty ideal to have the double-crease, but some Asians have it naturally anyway, so it’s also wrong to think of it as wholly western.
White people get nose jobs, Asians get eye surgery. What’s the big deal? The truth is big eyes are seen ass more attractive and she does look sleepy in the first pic. Who cares? It’s her body.
Oh come on n m
Changing physical features for aesthetic reasons has very different societal connotations if those reasons are racialised. White people don’t have nose jobs to look less white (unfortunately however it is more common amongst wealthier Jewish communities), so it is a false equivalency to compare that choice to a woman being told her eyes are ‘too asian’ for her to pursue her chosen career.
Unfortunately today’s beauty standards are extremely narrow and many women want to have smaller noses, bigger boobs etc to meet those standards. However lets please not pretend that the desire to look prettier (according to those normalised standards) is the same as societal pressure to look less like the race/ethnicity you are, and have those that are willing to physically rid themselves of features that marker non-white ethnicities rewarded with careers in the public eye. The former is not racist, the latter very much is.
@Gretchen +1000
I’m with nm, when I lived in Singapore, most of the wealthy Chinese Singaporeans had had eyelid and nose bridge surgery … Just like skin bleaching it is seen as a sign of a more upper/professional class!!!
It’s why the children look so much more Chinese than their parents – at least for 18 years or so …
I find the narrow eyes very beautiful. Shocked anybody wouldnt. Same goes for black afro hair. A friend of mine started wearing her hair that way amjd my God, the way it frames her face! She looks like a goddess. But she has alot of pressure to straighten it, which is truly bizzare! The woman is stunning.
We need to stop pushing our perceptions of beauty merely because we are the current reigning civilization. Eventually, we will decline, others will take over and we will be the ones altering our features to conform to their beauty ideals.
I agree Pink. People need to stop wanting what they don’t have and appreciate what they do. I also think her before eyes were gorgeous and exotic, and I have big eyes. I love myself now and appreciate my eyes, but when I was younger I would try to partially close my eyelids to go for that sexy, sleepy look. White women do that all the time to try to look exotic and sexy in pictures.
They talked about this on GMA this morning. It’s not just the industry. This is apparently the most popular plastic surgery among Asian women. He said a plastic surgeon in SE Asia will see 4-5 patients a day requesting this surgery.
Ironic that they talked about it on GMA – there’s an article in the most recent Good Housekeeping by a GMA contributor who was pressured to lose weight. It was framed as a “I finally saw the light!” article, but it depressed me nonetheless.
I have known women in the US that got the surgery done. One of them could not longer close her eyes, even when she was sleeping.
@megs283 do you remember who the contributor is? They had a feature just the other day for the woman who does Steals & Deals. She wrote a weight loss book and was plugging it on the show.
I heard about Julie Chen, and I’m sad that young women and men must mutilate themselves to be a celebrity. I believe there are a lot of people who’d like to see natural faces again.
I do realize that nose jobs, breast implants, and facial reconstruction have been going on since the days of silent movies, but I’d like to think in our ever changing multicultural world seeing non surgically altered faces in entertainment could become more normative.
I find it interesting that she mentions the eye surgery but not the nose job. It’s disgusting that such an emphasis of a certain “look” is put on people and those who are not that specific look aren’t considered as worthy. People are people!
Sadly, I don’t think people know what is “natural” anymore. I know it sounds silly, but hear me out. We know what WE (“the poors”) look like, but everyone on tv is so homogenous, so THE SAME, that after a while, if someone who looked like us got a big break, we would be same people bashing her for her looks.
She has a career and she did what she had to so she could support herself. As she said why look back now.
Many Asian women have eyelid revisions to give them a “crease” – it’s pretty common.
I don’t think she has had a nose job, though. Recentish photos of her without makeup show that she looks similar to her “before” pics – she just employs good use of highlighting and shading in her stage makeup.
She TOTALLY got a nose job! She can’t even breathe out of her nose anymore. If you listen, she breathes through her mouth because they constricted her nostrils (and bridge I guess) too much. THAT is the admission I wanted to hear from her. (And she clearly got her nose done a LONG time ago, which is why you don’t see many “before” pictures. But I know she got it “refined” again around the first or second season of Big Brother.)
My best friend from college got this surgery and I kept trying to tell her not to do it. I thought she was beautiful as she was. And you know what? She doesn’t look any different, but somehow it makes a lot of Asian girls FEEL as though they look “BETTER.” Better to whom? Their society that values “Western” features. IF you ask me, yes, I think it’s twisted. I think plastic surgery in America is pretty twisted too. We have the ugliest female news anchors in Los Angeles because all of them have distorted faces (with somewhat homogenous features). Seriously, you just stare at them and think, WTF? WHY would you want to look like that and remove any trace of character from your face? The same goes for the actresses. Keep your uniqueness ladies, and your ability to make facial expressions, or your acting careers are going to be cut even shorter than they normally would have been before….
her news director was a d-ck, as well as the agent. It doesn’t shock me, but it’s disappointing because I could care less who tells me the news as long as they do a good job. Oh how I miss Monica Pearson..
Good on her for admitting it. I have to say, though, that whole “We’ll all tell you a secret this week” seems super stunt-y. Talking about infertility and pressure on minorities to confine to the beauty “ideals” are important topics but why do it like that instead of framing it in a more serious, less ratings-graping way? Oh well, I guess it is daytime television.
Lady please. You got a whole new face
Tell it!
The boss had created body dysmorphic disorder in her.
I feel for her, so very very sad.
Horrific. Even. An attack on Chinese heritage too.
Wasn’t she married to Maury Povich at one time? I think she’s beautiful!
No that’s not her.
no, that’s Connie Chung and they’re still married. She was a way better reporter than Julie.
I heard that. Daddy Warbucks didn’t buy Connie Chung a bunch of television shows and the difference shows.
And Connie didn’t do anything to her eyes either. See a perfect example of someone not selling out and still managing to stay ahead.
I LOVE Connie Chung! more on her please
I don’t think that she would deny the nose job if asked. I think the eye surgery is a bigger deal to her and to her family obviously, by her story. It is about heritage and falls into the same category as all those people who feel they need to whiten their skin.
As for Julie Chen herself, I find her quirky and nice in small doses.
Except, when she told her little story, she ended it with – “And then my career took off.” Nothing about the nose job, or oh yeah, sleeping with the married boss. I think a combo of the three helped her “take off”.
I’m not surprised either- up until recently I was teaching University-aged Koreans and I’d say at least 50% of them had had their eyes done, some as a ‘graduation’ gift from their parents when they finished high school. I find it really sad that they feel like they have to do this 🙁 but whenever I expressed my concerns about it, they would look at me like I was nuts- in their heads they were ‘beautiful’ and that’s what mattered.
50%?! More like 99.9%!!! There’s a saying in Korean, “it’s not a sin to be born ugly, but it’s a sin to not fix it.” I don’t care what people do to their faces and bodies, but when the whole society pressures you to make you feel uncomfortable in your own skin, that’s just sad. But then again, we see that everywhere…
…and then she got a nose job when someone called her Jimmy Durante, and then she got botox when the cameraman said her forehead wrinkles added ten years and so on and so on.
It’s horrible that someone said those things to her but they didn’t make her get the surgery and I feel like this is just a way to use racism as an excuse for plastic surgery, kind of like ‘I got hit with a surfboard’, or ‘I had a deviated septum’.
LOL at the deviated septum…I had a septoplasty a few years ago, and multiple people asked me beforehand if I was also going to get a nose job! Um, no! Couldn’t help but wonder if it was a not-so-subtle hint.
(And in case anyone is considering a septoplasty…it was life-changing. I definitely recommend it!)
@Megs283- I have to have a septoplasty, but have been avoiding it, after hearing the recovery is really awful & painful *being a wuss* .
But I also have a sharp bone sticking up on my bridge (broke it in 1st grade but didn’t realize until much later (that it’d broken), after it’d naturally healed that way), which causes me awful headaches/facial pain, so won’t be able to avoid it much longer. At least my bridge wouldn’t have the sharp ‘bump’ thats plagued me my whole life…
Is the recovery of the septoplasty really that bad? =(
@hakura! Dude get it done! The recovery time may suck, but it sounds like it is worth it. I want one too no sinus problems, no headaches, being able to breathe properly. Sounds like heaven.
I find the reasons she had the surgery very sad, and I do admire her for sharing her story. So many in the Hollyhood have noticable plastic surgery and continue to deny deny deny. She is definately very brave. With that, I do think she had very good surgery. She still looks very natural.
Perhaps, but she can’t BREATHE through her nose! To me, her nose is not normal-looking.
I just thought she was half Asian, since that seems the Hollywood way (enough to make one “exotic” but a rejection of the full-on features – hence the reason why so many of the “black” kids in sitcoms are biracial”)
Thank you for pointing that out–the “whitewashing” of the American family, even in sitcoms. Two “black” parents with obviously “bi-racial” kids. Has annoyed me since the Cosby Show…. (If you’re gonna have bi-racial kids, at least have a bi-racial parent? We’re not idiots, H’wood!)
That reminds me of an episode of 30 Rock wherein Tracy Jordan relates why he has a personal hatred of Bill Cosby. It gets his passions flared up and he goes in on how he had ‘light-ass kids’ on the show. I laughed at that one.
SO agree, y’all. It actually undermines the diversity of skin color that we really do have within families. My family has various skin tones because of the French and Native American roots we have on both sides, but we all look like a family because our features are similar, and this situation is fairly common. However, nothing about bi-racial-looking children of two non-biracial parents is common, and kind of insulting that we aren’t supposed to notice. And yes, NO WAY Sondra and Denise were Cliff and Claire’s kids 😀
Very true! This has always bugged the hell out of me. And yes, the Cosby Show was extreme. Within black families there can be differences in complexion, hair texture and other physical features but the difference between those five children was just unreal.
Perhaps they picked the best actors for the roles instead of the ones who happened to be an identical race to the parents? Why is it always such an issue? Just pay attention to the characters and their personalities as opposed to scrutonising their heritage. It is TELEVISION. They always use white people of different backgrounds as families… not to mention Asians. How many white or black Americans can even tell which country some Asian people are from?
You see the same impossible diversity with non-black casts. Count up all the families on tv that amazingly have natural redheaded kids, and you’d never know how rare they are in reality. Nobody tries to do anything but cast in vague groupings ethnically speaking (like families with European, Asian, or African roots), with rare exceptions. That’s not actually a bad thing.
+1…sad but true
Having lived in Dayton Ohio my whole life, I am really not at all surprised by this. There’s a bunch of racist a**holes around here and 20 years ago, it was worse.
http://www.daytondailynews.com/news/news/local/dayton-tv-station-apologize-to-big-brother-the-tal/nZt9p/
I lived in Coshocton Ohio and they are so racist there.
It´s a horrible story! It´s just sad that in 2013 we still live in a world were there isn´t really much diversity in televison or film. The talent does not matter just the looks and money. Look at Kelly Rowlands Shape Magazine cover – her skin is photoshopped lighter. That just makes me sick.
But still I find it odd that she only mentions the eye surgery, she was in a way forced to do, but she fails to mention her nose job
Maybe she did the nose job for herself. Many women of all ethnicities get nose jobs for themselves, no one else.
but she only admitted to her surgery and why she did it, because her show had sort of a come clean week. so why not admit it to it all?
It’s easier to (accurately) blame racism for that one. Nose jobs are for everybody and trying to erase that bit of ethnicity is far from unique to Chinese women. I’m sure she’s not the only on that panel to have had one. It’s the Hollywood starter surgery.
I think we can all agree that she’s done tons of stuff to her face and that The Talk is only an hour-long show.
@Lauren – totally agree… Especially regarding Kelly Rowland. That girl had a hard road, a beautiful voice, but only in the group to act as a faceless/shapeless backup to draw even more attention to Beyonce. How could *anyone* blame her for ending up w/pretty much *complete* self hatred? (Hair, face, body shape, skin tone…)
It always annoys the pure crap out of me that Beyonce won’t admit to bleaching her skin & having a nosejob (at the very *least*).
To me, the nose job makes bigger difference in her appearance than the eye surgery. She’s quite pretty. The boss and agent were/are scumbags. Who knows how many young women and men have suffered the same injustice. That industry is frigging unreal..
Jesus. And what does it say about me that I am no longer surprised by how awful people can be, and how awful she was treated? Ugh.
I think its sad how plastic surgery and surgeries like gastric bypass are becoming an attempt at a quick fix to a more permanent problem in our society. In some cases I think it can be totally acceptable, necessary even. But I think more and more people think that their problem is, say being obese, when the real problem to fix isn’t the fat itself, its the addiction to food, the aversion to exercise. Because no one’s body needs or wants a large meal from Mcdonalds, junk food all the time. it is all in the mind. Same with the plastic surgery. If you Dont love yourself, you will not begin to after you get those bigger breasts, if you already do, then go for it.
I love this week of them telling something private. Aisha’s was moving.
I don’t get to watch the show, what did she reveal?
Now that she wasn’t on the road and in a stable job, one place, they decided to have a baby and after trying to no avail last year started in vitro and finally after all the injections realized it wasn’t going to happen recently and stopped. She was very emotional, crying. She said her husband was so amazing she couldn’t imagine a little version not being in the world. Im paraphrasing. She said the news was so fresh and raw that they needed time before they went to their next option. She had never told any of her coworkers what she was going through.
Wow, I had no idea. I listen to her podcast and she always said she loves her nieces but didn’t want kids of her own. I feel so badly for her that when she decided to do it, it couldn’t happen.
I hope she and her husband explore other options (adoption, surrogacy) if they would like to have a family. She’s a smart, funny woman, I wish her the best.
that makes me tear up a little, how heartbreaking.
I agree. I cried. She was so open and vulnerable – I feel like there was a collective expectation of a Hollywood-happy ending, where she’d say, “and now I’m pregnant!” And that didn’t happen, and she made clear that before she and her husband seriously considered adoption, they’d have to grieve their loss of having a biological child. It’s very serious stuff, and her honesty about her age and her pain moved me so much.
This week is the reason why I watch The Talk versus The View. While I didn’t see Sharon’s confession, which was hyped up too much, IMO, and I’m really kicking myself for missing Aisha’s, although seeing the clips of it just breaks my heart, Julie and Sara’s were pretty honest. Mind you, I’m kinda curious about Sheryl’s, since she’s already revealed about herself already (sex abuse, hysterectomy, fling with Flava Flav back in the day). The Talk’s cast just comes across as more sincere and genuine with each other, which I like.
As for Julie’s surgery, come on, now. It’s not surprising that she had it done. I remember the discussion about morning news shows’ success being based on the color of the female anchors’ hair and that blonde was the money color. For those of us who can’t pull off blonde, we’re in a pickle if we opt to participate in that business.
Myself, I like Julie and don’t hold it against her that she got the surgery, although I resent the hell out of the people who places these constrictions on what, supposedly, will guarantee ratings success on newscasts. It’s the freaking news, for heaven sake.
That is so sad about Aisha… I saw her doing stand up in Baltimore a couple of years ago and she was absolutely hilarious. I’m glad she’s found a more stable job now. I wish her and her hubby the best of luck.
@Danskins – Oh! Do you remember when that was? I wish I had known (I live in Baltimore). =)
Hi Hakura – she performed at the Baltimore Comedy Factory in early 2012, I think. She was amazeballs! 🙂
Some Asian women get eyelid surgery not to erase their ethnicity and look Caucasian but to add depth to the eyes. Asian eyes look flat on photos even with makeup.
“Asian eyes look flat on photos even with makeup.” And you forgot “beautiful” and “expressive” and “natural.”
Seriously, people, a whole “race” of people trying to change themselves and erase a certain seemingly natural characteristic. That’s MESSED UP! Please don’t encourage this way of thinking!
That’s a pretty crafty circumvention.
I think Jackie Chan had the same thing done, early in his career.
I’m pretty sure that Jackie has had a couple bad face lifts as well. I wish he hadn’t messed with his features. He was great looking.
Jackie Chan had multiple things done to his face and it’s not because of aesthetic reasons either. With over 40 years of martial arts and numerous accidents (if you followed his career in the HK press, he’s accidentally fallen off buildings, broken numerous bones, broke his nose many times, etc>), it’s bound to happen that he needs to be patched up.
Believe me, he didn’t get the work done because of some Western ideal. He got it done because he broke something.
Am I suppose to feel sorry for her ?
Did she mention sleeping her way to the top as well?
Well, there’s that….
HAHAHAHAHAHAHA – I think Moonves may also have left his wife for her.
…eventually. She acted as the sidepiece for long enough to become the whole cake–which she then took. Yeah, they’re not the most considerate people.
I read in Desperate Networks that while Les was still married and having an affair with good ol Julie, he built an identical CBS This Morning set for her in LA so it looks like she was working in NY where the show was based. Nepotism and favoritism doesn’t get any better than that. The only saving grace was that the staff actually say Julie is nice.
I don’t really respect her. She slept her way to the top. This boo hoo hoo about conformity is baloney. If she cared about her ethnic identity, she would have withstood all that criticism – Connie Chung did. Or she should have went to another market where there were actual minorities (CA, NY, Seattle).
I don’t like her and I thinks she’s pretty entitled. When all the networks broke in to announce the Casey Anthony verdict, Julie absolutely refused. She said her husband could talk to her if he had a problem with it. It shocked me that she had that much power.
I really don’t see the big deal. Models get told to change things all the time. Women also do it to themselves all the time. Did you know one of the big procedures is the chin area because people are constantly seeing that reflection in their smart phones/skype etc. Geezh.
The side by side pictures aren’t really fair. She had more than her eyes done, plus she’s gone from looking like a cub reporter to looking like a seasoned pro. With much better make up… It’s a reality of the business. An unfortunate reality of the business but no more shocking than looking at the difference between male and female news anchors/correspondents over the years. Men have always been allowed to look older and filled out. Women have rarely had the same luxury unless they’ve been mainly off camera, probably at the White House for 20 years.
I remember watching the local news for the first time in years and being shocked at the transformation of women newscasters. It’s true that they’ve always been held to a different standard than the men when it came to looks, but they still used to be a little more mature and dress more conservatively than, say, the buxom hosts of entertainment news shows. Now they look exactly the same!
ok i didnt read the main article looks to long and im tired.I just watched the video and I don’t like the part where she says now I look more expressive or alert whatever. I find that insulting to people with “asian” eyes, IMO. I find her generally very annoying, I guess I hated her when she said something dodge about Koreans, and I was like oh someone makes it in/to America and thinks she’s better than all the Asians back on the continent. whatever, anyway I cant stand any of the women on the talk except Aisha (I think that’s her name, I’ve only watched the show 3 times tops and the bulk of it was when leah remini and holly were on and they were funny from what I saw). PS Sharon osbourne is the most annoying on that show.
with regards to the eye surgery, see how our minds are still colonised people skin bleaching, eye surgery, nose jobs the works to look what? whiter. Seriously white being considered the standard for beauty to many colonised nations has warped our sense of self.
so yeah it saddens me more when those surgeries occur rather than liposuction etc.
yeah I know someone’s going to say but people get butt implants, fuller lips and tans. But where have you ever seen these people get complimented the way she was in this video or the way iman is or others for skin bleaching or tyra and her nose job. They usually made fun off like tan mom.
I just wish people would stop and be happy with who they are
Julie’s hair looks fantastic in that last picture. I never understood her affinity for the 90s bangs and layers do she normally sports. I don’t think it suits her at all.
Yeah the eyelids are the least of what she’s had done to that face.
ME thinks she is wearing a wig. Notice how much thicker her hair is?
I feel bad for her, but what her former employer did seems to be more and more common amongst the general public. People like to go on about “natural beauty” but when a celebrity’s appearance doesn’t conform to traditional or current ideas of what is “beautiful” they get raked over the coals. Maybe it’s time to stop putting people on pedestals or tearing them apart for what they were born with.
I feel badly she was put in that position. In the end she seems OK and happy with her decision, so that is what matters, but it’s really a shame that people are so close minded.
I also think she had a nose job as well.
I never watch her show, but see her often on Craig Ferguson. She seems OK, and I don’t think he’d have her on all the time if she wasn’t nice.
The story is awful but I have always thought her looks were got her where she is because I don’t think she’s a great reporter. I didn’t realize her husband was the president of CBS. That explains a lot too. But again, I have always thought she was not very good.
I have been watching Big Brother, and noticed her right eye seems wonky, a la Paris Hilton.
It that the botox?
I’m in two minds about this. On the one hand, it sounds like racism. On the other hand, many, many people before the camera alter their appearance.
I do believe that TPTB are so shallow that racism might not even enter into it.
And I find it interesting that she chose to alter the shape of her eyes. She didn’t have to do it. She is no victim, unless she was destitute and desperate for a job.
Who is she? Guess the eye surgery was not the career boost she was hoping for.
Why do people listen to one stupid thing said by the stupidest person around them at that minute in time? Good grief.
She was on CBS Morning News and The Early Show and has been the host of Big Brother for 13 years. You might not have heard of her, but she certainly is successful.
She did more than the eye job (which is poorly done by the way. It looks like the surgeon just cut the top lid higher so now her eyes are like upside down moons. I’m Asian so I can call it like it is). I don’t even think her eyes are better post surgery.
I would not credit the career upswing with the surgery. I’m going to credit her upswing to boinking a certain very married CBS CEO at the time. Yes Les Moonves was married to his wife when he started dating Julie.
I think she made the right choice and she didnt erase her Chinese heritage.For those judging do you judge people who get rid of their “Jewish”nose or “Black” nose like Patti Labelle, Stephanie Mills, etc. Are they less black due to nose jobs?
Take a class in ethnic studies and you will know why people are saying she’s erasing her heritage. The same can be said about the people you mentioned.
So everyone who has plastic surgery, straightens their hair, removes body hair, etc is erasing their heritage?
She had more than just her eyes done….nose and chin too.
its not fair that if one person of “x” ethnicity and one person of” y” ethnicity have plastic surgery, one is chasing beauty and the other is” erasing who they are”. women are always hunting beauty. paris had eye surgery that gave her a wonk, was she erasing her danish heritige? its racist that with two American females chasing the same thing, one has typical beauty issues while the other has a racial pride issues, yet the judgement is based on the race of the girl alone. i know that there are racial issues tied into historical context, but if if u take two current american females, its sad that her “race” determines if she gets the respective, unfair judgement or the beauty pass. all girls deserve the beauty pass in our current state of female ideals before the harsh judgment that awaits only certain American girls who are if the non-European look.
MINI RANT: “white” can be found all around the globe. certain facial features and skin tones that media would call “white” exist in various cultural groups spanning the continents.
She still looks asian and very beautiful. She also kept an asian surname. What’s the big deal? It’s not like she’s
Hiding her cultural identity?
I am black and I had a South Korean roommate my third year of University. We both used to exchanged stories all the time on what our cultures do to obtain the more ‘desirable traits’. I told her of how my great aunt hated my one brother for his dark skin but loved my other brother for his fair skin. As she was only half black (the other part of her Indian. She and my grandma were half sisters) she talked often to me as a child about what it meant to have good hair and that I didn’t have any despite my grandma’s father being Irish. She always criticized my ‘negro hair’/ she virtually ostracized my dark skin brother/ making him feel less than human on the concepts of superiority of house slaves vs. field slaves etc.
My roommate from South Korea was not surprised by my stories at all like many of my other fellow Canadian friends were. She understood on a level that they did not and I understood her on a level that others did not when she told me about the eye surgeries so many of the people get from back home and why they do it. Her mother and all her sisters had the surgery and she said she would also get it one day. Her mother she said always made comments about having more less asian looking eyes as they were more beautiful to men.
We both looked at each other really sad at the end of these conversations because we both saw in one another a unique beauty but at the same time we understood one another and our struggles in the day to day life to always have our confidence/ cultural/ racial traits challenged by those from within our culture who tear their own down as well and those from the dominant cultures outside who can sometimes also make you feel a bit inferior.
@Lauren – Wow. Thank you so much for sharing that experience (& it was so beautifully worded)… It truly gives a unique view into your (& your roommate’s) life experiences that I can (in no way) relate to my own.
I have extremely pale (chalk white) skin (freckled on face & shoulders, only during summer), & (naturally) dark brown, mostly straight hair. (Since I’m laying’ it all out, I’m also 5’1). So based on my appearance, I’ve never experiences the sort of harsh (often racial) judgment that you have. The closest I ever came was as a teen in the 90’s, when the tanning craze really hit. Obviously I couldn’t tan, never will. I got made fun of, called ‘sickly’, ‘anorexic’, a ‘goth girl’. Mean Girled to the extreme by the popular group. I tried *so* hard to tan, got burnt to a crisp many times, then ended up teased even more for my freckles. Spray tanners turned me totally orange (I looked like a freaking orange crush can).
It was very painful, & hard to deal with day after day. & I know it has resulted in many people taking permanent steps to change themselves for that reason. But I still understand, partially from your story, how different that is from the appearance judgments tied to ‘race’. All of it needs to end, & you’d think our society would at least have *started* trying to fix the problem by now.
Asian women aren’t getting surgery to look more white. It might be shocking to some but not everyone wants to be white!!! Having big eyes has always been seen as a favorable trait looooong before western influence so not all girls who get eyelid surgery are trying to “erase their identity” when a white girl gets a nose job or new boobs is she trying to erase her identity?! No. Not all Asians have small eyes and most have naturally double eyelids so stop making assumptions that Asians who do get this surgery want to look more “American”
I agree somewhat.
Just look at the sh*t Rene Zelweger and LeAnn Rimes get for their eye shapes (also ethnic). Nope, not surprised she has her epicanthal folds removed.
@UsedToBeLulu – “Just look at the sh*t Rene Zelweger and LeAnn Rimes get for their eye shapes (also ethnic).”
I didn’t know their eye shapes were because of ethnicity… How so, if you don’t mind my asking?
I’m big into the KPop (Korean Pop Music) scene, and this surgery is very common. It’s also common for regular youths in places like China (had a roommate who got it done who was from China). It’s very sad.
She had more done than her eyes and nose.
She looks like Julie “Ramirez” now, if you want to know the truth -.-
Interesting.
My comment about how not only white people have double eyelids and “black people have double eyelids too” got deleted. Twice.
Someone doesn’t like the truth eh? Or the truth doesn’t fit their own agenda. Strange either way.