It looks like the tables have turned on Barbara Walters.
The new Hulu documentary Barbara Walters: Tell Me Everything is revealing more than viewers could have possibly expected to know about the late broadcast legend, who made her name in journalism by asking celebrities invasive, hard-hitting questions on-camera. One of the documentary’s more revelatory moments features accounts from several of Walters’ former colleagues and friends who could personally attest to witnessing Walters’ bitter rivalry with fellow ABC star journalist, Diane Sawyer.
Walters, who worked on ABC’s 20/20 and 60 Minutes, reportedly felt “betrayed” when the network hired Sawyer to a launch a newsmagazine that was supposed to be “more lively” and “better” than 20/20, former ABC News executive producer Victor Neufeld said. Connie Chung revealed in the documentary that she knew Sawyer and Walters shared a “monstrous battle to win stories” as both women covered similar topics. Their respective staff also kept from discussing their work with each other in ABC.
Cynthia McFadden revealed in the documentary that Walters even attempted to sabotage a highly anticipated interview Sawyer booked with Katharine Hepburn.
“Diane had booked, fair and square, Katharine Hepburn, and Barbara, who knew Katharine Hepburn, put a lot of pressure on Kate to unbook and go with her,” McFadden recounted in the documentary. “You know, Kate said, ‘No, no. I promised Diane, and I will do it with her.’ And she did.”
The documentary features footage of Walters admitting she and Sawyer were in competition with each other for stories. “I don’t think Diane Sawyer and I had a feud; I think people know that we were after the same gets,” she says in the film.
McFadden, who was a longtime friend of Walters’, said they had “plenty” of conversations regarding her feelings about Sawyer.
“I never had a conversation with Diane Sawyer about her feelings about Barbara. But, I had plenty with Barbara about her feelings about Diane, because she was certainly dogged by Diane’s very existence,” McFadden said. “She often said Diane was the perfect woman. She used the words, ‘a blonde goddess,’ this ideal woman, and that she, Barbara, couldn’t compete with that. She could work harder, she could know more people, but she couldn’t compete with that, the blonde goddess.”
She continued, “She couldn’t tolerate having Diane Sawyer rise in what she saw as a direct challenge to what she had accomplished. … I think it tore into all those parts of herself where she felt, as a child, she was an outsider. In some bizarre way, Diane made her feel all of those insecurities all over again.”
Barbara Walters: Tell Me Everything is streaming now on Hulu.
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