Julie Chen Moonves is glad she said yes.
With her new audiobook But First, God out on Tuesday, the “Big Brother” host spoke with ET Canada’s Keshia Chanté and revealed why she initially turned down the reality show job.
“When I asked, ‘Will this prevent me from ever walking the halls of ’60 Minutes’?’ and I was told, ‘Yes.’ I said, ‘Well, thank you, then I’m not interested in this job.'”
“I turned it down because I was told, I was new at CBS News, I was only five months into working there, and I had dreams back then of becoming a ’60 Minutes’ correspondent,” she said. “So when they offered me ‘Big Brother’, I had a feeling if I host this, you know, strange sounding reality entertainment show, I don’t really think they’re going to want that same person being on ’60 Minutes’ as a correspondent.”
She continued, “And when I asked, ‘Will this prevent me from ever walking the halls of ’60 Minutes’?’ and I was told, ‘Yes.’ I said, ‘Well, thank you, then I’m not interested in this job,’ because I was looking at like long game. And they told me, ‘Well you work for the company. And we can technically assign you this job. And if you don’t do this assignment, it could be seen as insubordination.’ So I was like, ‘When’s that next flight to L.A.? We’re going to Hollywood! I can’t wait to host this show! Pick me!'”
Asked how she looks back on that now, Chen Moonves said, “That was God’s hands, you know? I was like, ‘No.’ And God was like, ‘There’s a purpose here. Come back here. Come back here, little one. You’re going to do it.’ And I’m so grateful that I am still there and that I took it.”
READ MORE: Julie Chen Moonves Says She ‘Felt Stabbed In The Back’ Amid ‘The Talk’ Exit: ‘That Was A Hard Time’
Chen Moonves has hosted “Big Brother” since its debut in 2000, but never did end up working on “60 Minutes”.
“I grew up on the show. The show has changed so much. It’s given me such a life and such an opportunity and a lot of fun.”
Asked if she would still like to do the iconic news show, she said, “No. I mean, that was when I thought, ‘I don’t want get married. I don’t want to have a family.'”
She explained, “I was going to be married to my job,” adding that doing “60 Minutes” now would take her away from her teenage daughter too much.
“I have to be present,” Chen Moonves said. “I’ll never forget. Maria Shriver told me when I was pregnant, she said, ‘Julie, you take as long as you need for maternity leave, because when you come back, that newsroom doesn’t care. You have a baby who’s colicky at home, they’re going to expect you to be 110% like you were before. And the next time you need to take maternity leave is when your kid is a teenager.’ And she was right.”
Talking about what “Big Brother” has meant to hear after more than two decades, she said, “I grew up on the show. The show has changed so much. It’s given me such a life and such an opportunity and a lot of fun. A lot of hours of laughter. And now a little platform. You know, at the end of each show, I end with love one another, which is Scripture. That is God’s second greatest commandment, the first being love God first and then love one another. It’s like 1.A and 1.B. So it has brought a lot of good things into my life and continues to. So I’m very grateful.”
