American television personality Julie Chen has confessed to undergoing plastic surgery on her eyelids at the start of her career to make her more "relatable" to non-Asians.
"The Talk" host opened up about her choice of reconstructive surgery on TV talk show Wednesday's, saying a news director's comments left her feeling "very insecure" about her Chinese heritage, reports contactmusic.com.
The 43-year-old star admitted she felt forced to alter her appearance after being told by her boss, "You will never be on this anchor desk, because you're Chinese."
Julie, who was working as a local reporter in Dayton, Ohio at the time, added: "He said, 'Let's face it, Julie, how relatable are you to our community?' How big of an Asian community do we really have in Dayton?
"On top of that because of your heritage, because of your Asian eyes, I've noticed that when you're on camera, when you're interviewing someone, you look disinterested and bored because your eyes are so heavy, they are so small. It felt like a dagger in my heart. It was racism."
She later underwent the invasive procedure to "widen" her eyes and admits it made a "dramatic" difference to her career.
"I look more alert ... more expressive.... after I had that done everything kind of, the ball did roll for me," she said.
