It was a big week for the women on The Talk last week, when the ladies all took turns revealing hidden secrets about their past. The show's moderator and Big Brother host, Julie Chen's, shocking revaluation that she had plastic surgery to Westernize her looks, has her still talking. She responded to the backlash she has had to face on the show Monday:
"I wasn't surprised that there would be haters judging me for what I did. What was hurtful was that the hateful comments that I read where people were judging me were people within my own community … It was comments like, 'Way to give in to the Western standards of beauty.' 'You're denying your heritage.' 'You're trying to look less Asian. "Guess what? I don't look less Chinese! I'm not fooling anybody here.''
Chen also spoke with People Magazine about the controversy:
"I am sorry to hear some within my own community are still judging me and don't agree with a decision I made for myself, which had nothing to do with denying my heritage. I want people to understand that there are Asians born with the crease I had surgically done to my eyes, so the goal was never to look less Asian. The goal was to simply have bigger eyes so the camera didn't make me look sleepy, bored, angry or disinterested in my interviews. The goal was to look, in my opinion, more alert and more interested on camera for my work/career."
The backlash all stems from last weeks secrets segment on the Talk when Chen reviled that criticism from a news director lead her to plastic surgery:
''You will never be on this anchor desk, because you're Chinese. Let's face it Julie, how relatable are you to our community? How big of an Asian community do we really have in Dayton? ... On top of that because of your heritage, because of your Asian eyes, I've noticed that when you're on camera, when you're interviewing someone you look disinterested and bored because your eyes are so heavy, they are so small.'"
This experience, and a similar one with an agent, convinced the American-born reporter that she would have to change her looks if she wanted to advance her career. She weighed the decision with family and friends, before ultimately electing to undergo plastic surgery to widen her eyes--a decision she says that she does not regret: "I have to live with every decision that I've made…And it got me to where we are today. And I'm not going to look back."
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