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Allison Kugel: What are some significant life events that have made you the human being you are today? Debbie Matenopoulos: I feel like every single day there are significant life events and it’s your choice to see them, hear them, take them in, and do something with them or not. Listen, growing up in America I looked like your typical white girl, but I’m 100% Greek through and through. My parents didn’t speak English when they came to this country. I’m as immigrant as they come. My sister and brother were born in Greece. My parents had two suitcases, two kids, and $50 in their pocket. They managed to put themselves through night school to learn English to then have successful careers and be able to help their kids go to school and help pay for college. One moment that I always think about is when I was six years old and at the grocery store with my mom. My mother obviously has a very thick accent and could hardly speak English properly, but she was trying and doing her best. She was asking something of the saleswoman at the store, and the saleswoman kept saying, “What?!,” and being really dismissive and rude. She said to my mom, “I’m sorry, I don’t understand you.” And she kept talking louder and louder as if speaking louder and with an aggressive tone was going to make my mother understand her. I remember seeing my mom look so deflated and so ashamed. And I remember looking up and saying to the saleswoman, “My mother is not stupid. She just speaks a different language. Please stop talking to my mom like that.” That moment, for me, I think helped me empathize with immigrants so much in this country. Allison: We are a nation of immigrants, but in recent times there is an animosity towards immigrants, like a hostility towards you if you don’t speak English well, and if you are trying to get your foot in the door but you don’t fit in. Debbie: Exactly. This country is a melting pot. The country was born out of immigrants. It’s interesting, I’ve never said that to anybody before. That was big for me. Allison: Wow! That is a big deal then. Debbie: Another big life moment would be getting hired for The View (Matenopoulos was an original co-host on The View from 1997 – 1999). That was life altering, and nothing I expected at that time. I was at a party uptown with some guys that said, “Come audition for this show.” I was working at MTV, I had pink hair, and I was going to NYU Journalism school. Barbara Walters was doing the show and I said, “Are you out of your mind? Barbara Walters is going to want me to go work for her?! You must be crazy!” I didn’t think about it twice. I was at school in the morning at NYU, and I went to MTV after school because that was my job. My roommate told me that the same guy from the party called to continue to persuade me to go for this interview for this new show. He was a casting director for Barbara’s production company, and she had hired him to cast her new show. I go up there and maybe I thought I didn’t have anything to lose. Perhaps that was one of the reasons that I was not anxious about it. I figured it didn’t matter if I got hired for this. That is probably why, looking back now, they actually hired me, because I was so…. not in my head about it. Allison: I pictured that part of your story so much differently. I pictured that you are working at MTV and somehow you met Barbara Walters somewhere, and she was like, “You.” (Laughs) I guess that’s not how it happened. Debbie: Completely different. I mean I showed up thinking this is nuts. And there is a big difference between MTV and ABC. ABC was very corporate. MTV was like working at Romper Room. They asked me about my life and to come back and audition. I go back to audition two weeks later at one of the hotels near Central Park in New York. They had rented the whole suite and all of these people show up. All of these women who were famous, except for me. Allison: They were all seasoned journalists, correspondents, known personalities. Debbie: All of them. I’m thinking, “Okay I’ve had