"I've been acting my whole life," and she's never discussed her personal life, she said, and while she expects to do so in the course of doing this show, "I felt that the first place I wanted to do it wasn't in a CBS news release."
CBS, which last week also had its knuckles rapped by the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation when it gave the network a failing grade for not being "LGBT-inclusive" in prime time (and for leaving Gilbert's partner off the release), yesterday had entertainment president Nina Tassler vowing to do better and noting that next season, "The Good Wife" will introduce us to Alicia's gay brother.
Tassler was also asked to defend the casting of Chen, whose husband happens to be Tassler's boss, CBS CEO Les Moonves - in a third show. (She already hosts "Big Brother" and is expected to continue to appear on "The Early Show," though she'll probably no longer be a co-host "because that's too much even for the Chen-bot," as Chen herself put it.)
Guess what? Chen, too, was Gilbert's idea.
"The bottom line was the executive producer of the show, Sara Gilbert, said, 'Do you think Julie would be interested?' We followed her lead," Tassler said, adding, "I made the decision. I don't think Leslie was unhappy with the decision."
Well, Gilbert did grow up in show business.
But while all the women were happy to dish about their significant others for reporters - Peete reporting that her husband, Rodney, a former Eagles quarterback, snores and that she'd tried "to put one of those Breathe Right strips on him in his sleep" - there are, it turns out, places the talkative women of CBS won't be going.
