CBS daytime show The Talk is now free to discuss the ongoing #MeToo movement without walking on eggshells; show Den Mom Julie Chen announced Tuesday that she is leaving, effective immediately.
“I have been at The Talk since the day it started nine year ago,” Chen said in a message that viewers were told had been recorded on Big Brother’s set moments earlier (see it below). Chen has not been seen on The Talk since Season 9 began September 10, after her husband Leslie Moonves stepped down as CEO of CBS Corp amid a pair of New Yorker reports that alleged past sexual misconduct.
While saying The Talk cast, crew and staff had become “family to me,” Chen explained today, “right now I need to spend more time at home with my husband and our young son. So I have decided to leave The Talk.”
Chen had announced moments before the season debut that she “was taking a few days off” to be with her family.
Moonves’ exit following the New Yorker‘s publication of a second Ronan Farrow article in which more women accused the veteran TV exec of inappropriate workplace conduct and sexual harassment.
