Julie Chen Moonves on being 'hated' when 'Big Brother' began (2024)

On Aug. 2, Big Brother will begin its landmark 25th season on CBS. Along the way, the summer standby has become the second-longest airing broadcast reality show — right after Survivor, which premiered just a month beforehand.

But if you had told Julie Chen Moonves — then just Julie Chen — during season 1 in the summer of 2000 that the series would not only last 25 seasons, but also spin off into three celebrity installments as well as a special streaming edition, what would her reaction have been? "Honey, I would've said, 'What the F are you talking about?'" laughs the host.

While Big Brother has come to define CBS summers for this millennium more than any other show, its initial run on the network was more a surreal fever dream (captured here in all of its painfully awkward glory) than an important, franchise-launching event. Critics and viewers alike savagely attacked the program pretty much immediately upon its July 5, 2000, launch. And among the targets was a fresh-faced host out of the CBS news department who didn't even want to be there in the first place.

"I originally turned down the job," Chen Moonves says. "I was forced to take it, so I took it. I didn't know what I was in for." Formerly a local anchor in Dayton, Ohio, Chen Moonves had only been at the network for five months, acting as the CBS Early Show news reader, when she was given her new post in the burgeoning days of reality TV. And while she was initially hesitant to take the job, once Survivor exploded on to the scene on May 31, 2000, Chen Moonves figured their show would be the next one to enthrall the nation. "I assumed it was going to be bigger than Survivor — just in a house with air conditioning," she recalls.

That didn't happen. There were many problems with Big Brother's first season — from the fact that viewers (not the contestants themselves) were the ones banishing players, to the cheesy activities forced on the cast (like staging a fake talk show), to the random studio interviews with folks like AOL Online Advisor Regina Lewis, gambling expert Art Manteris, and, yes, Dr. Drew. And this was all happening up to six nights a week for 70 episodes. Instead of busting out, Big Brother was a bust.

"I thought, 'Ooh, this is going to really change the face of television,'" recalls Chen Moonves, "only to receive the worst reviews from every angle on season 1. TV critics hated the concept of the show. They hated the lighting. They hated the IKEA-looking furniture. They hated the house, they hated everything."

And that list included the host. "Externally, people hated me. Critics internally — people at CBS News — wanted me fired from the news division." And those calls for Chen Moonves' job were not just coming from behind closed doors after one of CBS news' most famous faces came out swinging.

"I thought I was going to lose my job doing morning news because Andy Rooney spoke out publicly against me when I hosted Big Brother," says Chen Moonves. "He was like, 'How dare she blur the lines between news and entertainment? She should immediately be fired from the news division and shipped off to the west coast and permanently put in the entertainment division if that's what she wants to do.' I was like, 'Oh my God, Andy Rooney's going to have me fired!'"

To make matters worse, it didn't look like the news anchor-turned-reality host would have a job for much longer out in Hollywood either. "I didn't know how the entertainment industry worked. And someone said to me during season 1, 'You know, there are rumors that if our ratings don't pick up, the network's going to cancel the show.' And I'm like, 'How does that work? It's live! Do we just open the door and let the remaining seven people go home?'"

After her rise from local news anchor to national network morning show personality to prime-time host, everything on all sides appeared to be falling apart. "I thought, number one, we're not going to finish season 1. Number two, I'm probably going to get fired completely from the network. That's it for my career. I'm going back [to] Dayton and begging for my job back there as a local news reporter.'"

Somehow, Big Brother made it through its first season without being cancelled, and Chen Moonves then made her way back to New York and The Early Show news desk. "I go back to, 'Hey, good morning, Bryant Gumbel. Can I get you your coffee?' I'm the news reader. I'm like the fourth banana. I'm the fourth person on the call sheet and my tail's between my legs. And Bryant loves Survivor, but he never said anything about Big Brother. I thought, 'Great. He's now going to get me fired. He didn't want me on his show either!"

When she got a call from the then-president of CBS — and future husband — Les Moonves roughly a month after season 1 wrapped, the double-duty employee assumed the ax was finally going to fall. 'I got a call from Les Moonves and he's like, 'I have to go to this event tonight for Gorbachev and Clinton and you work for the news division. Do you want to meet me at the event?" He needed a plus one, and I was like, 'Oh my God, my boss' boss' boss is taking me out to a public place to fire me!"

Yes, the host of Big Brother thought she was going to be fired in front of former leader of the Soviet Union Mikhail Gorbachev. "I really thought that!" laughs Chen Moonves. "I remember calling my best friend. I was like, 'Is that how this works, so it is a softer blow? I can't make a scene in front of Gorbachev."

Believing her career to be precariously on the line, Chen Moonves couldn't take the uncertainty any more so finally asked her boss' boss' boss at the event why she was there. "I remember saying to him, 'Are you here to fire me?' And he was like, 'What? Executives don't take out their talent to fire them.'"

Even with that assurance, Chen Moonves couldn't escape the feeling that was she was going to be canned at the annual CBS holiday party at the company's Black Rock offices in midtown Manhattan. "Fast forward to December and I'm at what I call the CBS Petting Zoo Party, and I'm like 'Maybe they're going to fire me at this party. But I barely talked to Les Moonves. I was waiting for signs of him being like, 'Get her away from me. She's getting fired after the new year,' but again, I skated by."

What the host did not know is that executive Ghen Maynard and others at CBS who weren't ready to give up on the show had been working behind the scenes to revamp the concept. "I get this call from Ghen, who says, 'Julie, they want you back. They're going to do season 2 and they want you to meet with the new producers. I'm like, 'What?' And I meet with Arnold Shapiro. Arnold turned the whole thing upside down."

That upside-down-turning meant convincing Dutch franchise creator John de Mol Jr. that what worked in the Netherlands didn't necessarily work in the United States. "They told the creators, you want this show renewed? We gave you your shot. We did exactly what you wanted. Even though we told you that what works in Amsterdam doesn't work in America. If you want it renewed, we're hiring our own producers and you guys take the backseat and you just get the money, right?"

And the rest is reality television history. "Arnold and Allison [Grodner] turned the show upside down and made it what it is today," says Chen Moonves. "If it wasn't for Arnold and Allison, I honestly don't think we would be here talking about the 25th season."

Nor would we be talking about it if Mikhail Gorbachev had helped fire its host 23 years ago.

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