Julie Chen revealed on Wednesday that she had plastic surgery years ago to make her eyes look "bigger" and advance her career.
Chen told her fellow co-hosts on "The Talk" that when she was a young local news reporter, her news director told her she would never make it to the anchor desk because she was Asian and because of her "Asian eyes."
"It felt like a dagger in my heart," Chen recalled. "My lifelong dream was one day to be a network news anchor and if I can't even anchor in Dayton, Ohio, how am I ever gonna get to New York City?"
She said that it made her "insecure," and a "big time agent" later told her the same thing. The agent would not represent her unless she got eye surgery.
After describing her struggle over the decision, Chen showed before and after pictures of herself, saying that the procedure gave her "bigger" eyes and that she looked more "alert" than before. "Now, it's like I sometimes wonder — but I will say after I had that done everything kind of, the ball did roll for me. I struggle with, 'Wow. Did I give in to the man in doing this?'" she said.
The revelation came as part of "Secrets Week" on "The Talk," when one co-host reveals a secret everyday. "I don't like to live with regrets," Chen added. "I did it. I moved on. No one's more proud of being Chinese than I am."
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