Barbara Walters Admits Past Affair with Married Senator
May 01, 2008
Although she’s made a living talking, Barbara Walters remained decidedly mum for decades about an affair with a married U.S. Senator, the newswoman revealed on The Oprah Winfrey Show.
During the show, scheduled to air Tuesday, Walters remembers Sen. Edward Brooke – with whom she says she had an affair for several years in the 1970s – as “exciting” and “brilliant.”
Brooke, a moderate Republican from Massachusetts who took office in 1967, was the first African-American to be popularly elected to the Senate. Both he and Walters knew that public knowledge of their affair could have ruined his career as well as hers, Walters says.
At the time, the twice-divorced Walters was a rising star in TV news and co-host of NBC’s “Today” show, but would soon jump to ABC News, where her career soared.
Walters sat down with Oprah to discuss her new memoir, “Audition,” which covers her long career in television, as well as her off-camera life. On “Oprah,” Walters recounts a phone call from a friend who urged her to stop seeing Brooke.
“He said, ‘This is going to come out. This is going to ruin your career,’” then reminded her that Brooke was up for re-election a year later. “‘This is going to ruin him. You’ve got to break this off.’”
Winfrey asks Walters if she was in love.
“I was certainly — I don’t know — I was certainly infatuated.”
Also during the program, Walters chokes up while describing the struggles of her older sister Jackie, who was mentally retarded. Walters confesses that, as a child, she sometimes felt embarrassed by Jackie.
“She stuttered terribly. People made fun of her. People made fun of me,” Walters says. “I didn’t bring friends home. I felt terribly guilty because she was very loving and I didn’t always feel that way.”
Jackie Walters died in 1985 of ovarian cancer.
“When I think of her, because she was beautiful and loving and all of that, it makes me cry.”
