Julie Chen Moonves opened up about her decision to get a facelift after leaving The Talk in 2018 in her new audiobook But First, God. In the memoir, Julie, 53, revealed that she was forced to leave the daytime show, and she admitted that she decided to get the plastic surgery to look “fabulous and rested” when she made her eventual return to TV. She also opened up about the pressures for women to look “young” in the entertainment industry.
In one excerpt, the host likened the decision to getting in shape after a breakup. “You know how some people, when they get broken up with by a loved one, they get a revenge body? Well, I wanted to get a revenge face. So I got a lower facelift,” she said, per Variety.
While Julie hadn’t intended to tell anyone about her procedure, she said that someone did snap a picture of her leaving her appointment. “And I thought, Ooh, no one’s gonna know. They’re just gonna think I look fabulous and rested. But leaving one of my doctor’s appointments looking totally unrecognizable and completely bandaged up like a mummy, little did I know I got caught by the paparazzi,” she wrote.
At other points in the memoir, Julie also claimed that she was forced to leave The Talk after her husband Les Moonves resigned from his position with CBS amidst sexual misconduct accusations, which he denied. “The decision to leave the show was made for me,” she wrote in the book. She claimed, “with my name and my husband’s name being in the headlines and all this chaos, two of my co-hosts called the powers at CBS and said, ‘If Julie shows up to work tomorrow, we’re not coming in.’ So, I was basically told, ‘Please don’t come back to work anymore.’”
After leaving The Talk, Julie returned to TV as the host of Celebrity Big Brother. Elsewhere in the book, Julie also opened up about reconciling with her former Talk co-host Leah Remini after The King of Queens star left the show.