[10][8] Chen's maternal grandfather, Lou Gaw Tong, grew up "dirt poor" in the rural village of Penglai in Fujian province of China, and became wealthy through a chain of grocery stores and ultimately became a polygamist with nine wives and 11 children.

[7] One of her earlier jobs came in June 1990, interning alongside Andy Cohen at CBS Morning News[15][16] – the series which she would anchor a decade later – where she answered phones and copied faxes for distribution.

After a "big-time agent" agreed and advised her to get plastic surgery, she made the decision to have a surgical procedure to reduce the epicanthic folds of her eyes.

From 2002 to 2010, she was a co-host of The Early Show on CBS, before leaving the daily position but remaining as a special contributing anchor of the program until its cancelation.

During the first season (2000), Chen was widely criticized for her heavily scripted, wooden delivery in her interaction with the studio audience and in the interviews on the live programs, earning her the nickname "Chenbot."

She has indicated in two interviews[19][20] that she takes no personal offense at the term, adding that it may derive from her "precise on-air style" which comes from "a desire to be objective."

[29][30][31] In her 2023 audiobook But First, God: An Audio Memoir of Spiritual Discovery, she says she was "collateral damage" following the decision to oust Moonves at CBS.

[40] In September 2013, during the first week of Season 4 of The Talk, Chen revealed that she had undergone blepharoplasty early in her career after being pressured by her previous news director and a high-profile agent to look less Asian.

[42] CBS officially confirmed she would return to host the second season of Celebrity Big Brother in a press release on November 27, 2018, using the name "Julie Chen Moonves".

[43][44][27] In her audiobook, But First, God: An Audio Memoir of Spiritual Discovery, released on September 19, 2023, she revealed that she had embraced Christianity in 2018 after never having attended a Sunday church service.

[32] She told Good Morning America: "Julie Chen before she found God was self-absorbed, career-minded, vain, gossipy — fun to be with, but probably kind of a shallow person.