Julie Chen Moonves Found God Amid ‘Identity Crisis’ After Leaving THE TALK
By Movieguide® Contributor
Faith-filled TV host Julie Chen Moonves shared how being let go from THE TALK helped her discover what a relationship with God truly means.
Per The Christian Post, “In 2018, Chen Moonves went through personal turmoil after her husband, Leslie Moonves, whom she wed in 2004, resigned from CBS amid allegations of sexual misconduct. Moonves, 73, has denied the allegations from multiple women. Just over a week later, Chen Moonves, who shares a son with her husband, announced her exit as moderator of THE TALK, the network’s daytime program she’d hosted since 2009.”
“I was forced out from my job THE TALK, where I was co-host and the moderator for the last eight years of my life,” she told Relevant Magazine. “When I lost that job and was forced to step down, life as I knew it was like a snow globe turned upside down. And that made me go through a ball of emotions.”
“There was a lot of anger,” she added. “There was fear of what was going to become of me, my future, who I am. I was having this identity crisis because I was so wrapped in my identity as a broadcaster. I felt lost.”
However, when she found out through an email that a friend of her aunt was praying for her, she began to turn to God.
“She said the Holy Spirit touched her to have my aunt reach out to me to let me know this,” Chen Moonves recalled of the email. “And I couldn’t believe that this woman that I don’t know, I’ve never met, was praying for me and my family.”
“For a long time, when I heard the word ‘Christian,’ I would think of people like Jim Bakker or Jerry Falwell,” she said. “I had this image of Christians as judgmental, Bible-thumping people who didn’t accept others unless they were white. I’d say it wasn’t a good image.”
However, Chen Moonves put those emotions aside and made a bold choice one Thursday morning.
“That email prompted me to go to church that morning; it was a Thursday morning, and I dropped my son off at school that morning and I drove straight to one of the three churches not far from my house,” she added. “And it’s pretty amazing that before 9 a.m., the doors were open, and I went in, and I just was by myself, and I got down on my knees, and I started praying and opening up my heart to God asking for help.”
“I immediately began sobbing and asking God to help me,” she said. “I asked Him to show me why this was happening to me and to show me some light, love and hope.”
From then on, Chen Moonves attended church weekly and began to grow in her faith daily.
“I realized Christianity is about a personal relationship with God,” she admitted. “It all came together through various people in my life, whether it was my aunt or former cameraman who sent me a study Bible or my former college roommate who sent me ‘Hope for Today’ by Billy Graham. I saw that Christianity was about being saved; it wasn’t about being judged or punished. It was about being saved and having hope in life. That’s what really made me run towards Christianity.”
Since then, Chen Moonves has used her platform to point others to God. Last year, she released an audio memoir called “But First, God.”
“I want everyone to have [a relationship with God], because once I started that, I found peace. But most of all I found hope,” she told ABC News.
Movieguide® previously reported on Chen Moonves faith:
Chen admitted that she ignored many of her former friends out of animosity, until finding faith in God changed her perspective.
Despite a season of tremendous difficulty for Chen, she noted that everything changed when “God entered the picture big time.”
Chen said that she felt called to forgive Remini and a party for the former co-worker’s husband.
“If I didn’t have Jesus in my life at that point, I wouldn’t have gone out of my way to hunt him down and say hello,” she recalled. “I know God says to forgive. So I called her, she answered. We laughed. We buried the hatchet. And today we’re probably closer than ever. Leah did try to apologize to me a year after our friendship blew up, but I was too hard-hearted to accept it. Without faith in my life, I didn’t understand the importance of forgiveness, but the Bible tells us very clearly to forgive one another.”
“I don’t know if I could’ve reconciled if I didn’t have God in my life,” she said.
“God before anything and everything,” she continued. “Once I started that, I found peace, but most of all I found hope.”
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