Julie Chen Moonves: It Was Not My Decision To Leave The Talk
Six years after vacating her role as moderator on The Talk, Julie Chen Moonves is shedding new light on her headline-grabbing departure from the CBS chatfest.
In an interview on Monday's Good Morning America to promote her new audio book But First, God, Chen Moonves revealed that contrary to her public statements at the time, the decision to leave The Talk in the wake of husband Les Moonves' scandal-plagued CBS ouster was not hers.
"That was a hard time," the Big Brother host said of being forced out of The Talk, presumably by CBS. "I felt stabbed in the back. I was."
Chen Moonves' 2018 Talk exit came one week after Moonves' firing as CBS chairman and CEO amid a sexual misconduct firestorm.
SEPT. 19 UPDATE: In the first chapter of her audio memoir, released on Tuesday, Chen Moonves alleged that she was treated as "collateral damage" by CBS and her Talk co-hosts, and that "the decision to leave the show was made for me."
She claimed that ahead of The Talk's Season 9 premiere, she was told in a phone call that "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.'"
"I have been at The Talk since the day it started nine years ago, and the cast, crew and staff have become family to me over the years," Chen Moonves said in a pre-taped message that kicked off The Talk's Sept. 18, 2018 telecast. "But right now, I need to spend more time at home with my husband and our young son. So I've decided to leave The Talk."
In her memoir, Chen Moonves called the experience of taping her goodbye message "weird" and "emotional."
"I was filled with a combination of sadness, anger, despair. I just felt lost," she recalled. "But I knew it was not only the right thing to do, but the only thing to do."
TVLine has reached out to CBS for comment on Chen Moonves' assertion.