in Dayton her news director had told her that she would never become a news anchor because of her "Asian eyes". After a "big-time agent" agreed and advised her to get plastic surgery, she made the decision to have a surgical procedure to reduce the epicanthic folds of her eyes. From 1999 to 2002, Chen was the anchor of CBS Morning News and news anchor of CBS This Morning and later The Early Show, alongside Bryant Gumbel, Jane Clayson, Hannah Storm, Harry Smith, Maggie Rodriguez, Erica Hill, and Rene Syler. From 2002 to 2010, she was a co-host of The Early Show on CBS, before leaving the daily position but remaining as a special contributing anchor of the program until its cancelation. Before CBS News, she was a reporter and weekend anchor at WCBS-TV in New York City. Since 2000, she has also been the host of the American version of Big Brother. During the first season (2000), Chen was widely criticized for her heavily scripted, wooden delivery in her interaction with the studio audience and in the interviews on the live programs, earning her the nickname "Chenbot." She has indicated in two interviews that she takes no personal offense at the term, adding that it may derive from her "precise on-air style" which comes from "a desire to be objective." She again acknowledged the nickname while discussing mugs made in her likeness when she proudly proclaimed, "I am the Chenbot!" in a segment on The Early Show. Chen was the moderator and co-host of the CBS Daytime talk show, The Talk, which premiered on October 18, 2010. The show featured Chen, the show creator Sara Gilbert, Sharon Osbourne, Leah Remini, Holly Robinson Peete and Marissa Jaret Winokur. On September 18, 2018, Chen announced in a prerecorded tape that she would not be returning to The Talk because she needed "to spend more time at home with [her] husband", after a number of sexual assault allegations surfaced against her husband Les Moonves. Personal life Following her graduation from the University of Southern California as a broadcasting and English major, she became a news assistant for ABC News in Los Angeles, in September 1991. There, she met her future longtime boyfriend, television news editor Gary Donahue, though their relationship did not last. She began dating Les Moonves, president and chief executive officer of CBS Television, during his marriage to Nancy Wiesenfeld