Bio
Julie Chen is an American television personality, news anchor and producer best known for co-anchoring CBS's The Early Show, alongside Harry Smith and Maggie Rodriguez; and for hosting the U.S. version of Big Brother since its debut in July 2000.
Chen is a special contributing anchor of The Early Show. Since October 2002 she has covered several major news stories for the program, including the war in Iraq, and in March 2003 she reported for the program from Kuwait and Qatar during the war.
Chen has interviewed newsmakers, including former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani, Queen Rania of Jordan, and former Defense Secretary William Cohen, as well as celebrities Tom Hanks, Ellen DeGeneres, Tom Cruise, Ben Affleck, Angelina Jolie, Chris Rock and Jennifer Lopez, among many others.
Before that, Chen served as news anchor of The Early Show and anchor of the CBS Morning News, the CBS Television Network's early-morning broadcast, since Nov. 1, 1999, when The Early Show debuted under that title.
Prior to joining The Early Show, Chen was a reporter and anchor for WCBS-TV, the CBS-owned station in New York (1997-99).
Chen spends her summers doing double duty between co-anchoring The Early Show and hosting Big Brother.
Before joining CBS News, Chen worked as a reporter for WDTN-TV Dayton (1995-97). She began her career at ABC News (1990-95), where she worked on the late night news program Nightline and contributed to the award-winning primetime special Anatomy of a Riot about the 1992 Los Angeles riots.
Chen was born in Queens, N.Y. She was graduated from the University of Southern California in 1991 with a degree in broadcast journalism and English. Chen lives in New York and Los Angeles with her husband, president and CEO of CBS Television, Leslie Moonves.