Post date: Sep 26, 2013 1:55:35 PM
Next Media Online - US television personality Julie Chen revealed last week on national television that as a young journalist she underwent plastic surgery to make her eyelids appear larger. Chen, 43 and a co-host of CBS daytime show The Talk, said that when she was 25 and working as a local broadcast news reporter in Dayton, Ohio she developed a sense of insecurity about her eyes after her station’s news director told her she would never become an anchor because of her “Asian eyes.”
“My secret dates back to — my heart is racing — it dates back to when I was 25 years old and I was working as a local news reporter in Dayton, Ohio,” Chen said Thursday on The Talk.“[The news director] said: ‘You will never be on this anchor desk, because you're Chinese.’ He said: ‘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.’”
Chen then began taping and watching her segments each day to study the heaviness of her eyelids. When a prominent agent told her he would not represent her unless she had plastic surgery on her eyes, she decided to undergo a procedure that would give her what New York Magazine calls “a Caucasian-style double eyelid.”
“This big-time agent had the biggest names,” Chen said on The Talk. “Like if you opened up his closet, it was all stars, he knew what he was doing. On his own, he basically told me the same thing. He said: ‘I cannot represent you unless you get plastic surgery to make your eyes look bigger.’ I did it ... I will say, after I had that done, the ball did roll for me. Which I struggle with. You know, wow. Did I give in to ‘the man’ and do this?”
Double eyelid surgery is a form of blepharoplasty, a procedure performed on the upper or lower eyelid for functional or cosmetic purposes, including to correct sagging upper eyelids, remove “bags” from under the eyes, or, as in Chen’s case, to add a crease to the upper eyelid.
Double eyelid surgery is reportedly the most common form of cosmetic surgery in South Korea,Taiwan and China.
SOURCES: CBS, Yahoo News, ABC, Reuters, Clinica London
http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-207_162-57602721/julie-chen-reveals-she-had-plastic-surgery-to-make-eyes-look-bigger/
http://sg.entertainment.yahoo.com/blogs/singapore-showbiz/more-singaporeans-flying-seoul-plastic-surgery-054839924.html
http://abcnews.go.com/Health/niptuck-nations-countries-cosmetic-surgery/story?id=16205231
http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/world/archives/2012/02/20/2003525943
http://www.clinicalondon.co.uk/blepharoplasty/
http://www.reuters.com/news/pictures/slideshow?articleId=USRTXY6V9
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