‘Big Brother 24’: Julie Chen Moonves Reflects On Last Year’s Cookout Alliance & Why She Changed Her Last Name

deadline.com:

Expect the unexpected has become the catchphrase for Big Brother — but occasionally, host Julie Chen Moonves likes to use it to describe herself.Case in point: Shortly after her husband Leslie Moonves stepped down as CEO of CBS Corp.

in 2018, the Big Brother host surprised everyone by using her married name to sign off from the Sept. 13 episode. “I made the change on the fly on a live show in the spur of the moment,” Chen Moonves recalls to Deadline. “I didn’t tell anybody.

I was like toying with it and I remember my heart racing while I thought, ‘am I gonna do it?’ It just became a moment.”Even her husband was surprised by his wife’s sudden about face on camera, particularly since she had been using her maiden name on Big Brother since 2000. “I think he was just like, what happened?” she recalls. “When I married my husband, I chose not to take the name because I thought it could be seen as an unfair advantage.

It was a powerful, popular name to have. And I had made my own career prior to knowing him. So I wanted to keep that. And then when his name was getting dragged through the mud, I thought this is the time to make my stand and to let the world know who I am.