The friends of Barbara Walters reveal her greatest regrets, private difficulties (exclusive)

When most people think of Barbara Walters, they probably remember the older version of the pioneering journalist: his signing blonde puff, his political debates with colleagues on colleagues The view Or her famous television interviews seated during which she seated in front of celebrities and sometimes made them cry.

But the new documentary Barbara Walters tells me everything (Hulu, June 23) explores a much deeper – and sometimes darker – side of Walters. He examines his ascent at the top as the first female co-album in Nightly Network News, and examines the sexism that she has been confronted along the way and how her family life suffered as she devoted herself fully to her career.

“His path to success has been paved with Nids-de-Poule and Peril and Opponents,” explains her longtime friend and main executive producer ABC News, David Sloan, in the coverage of people this week. He stayed in the life of Walters until she disappeared from the spotlight in 2019, while she was fighting in private dementia before her death in 2022 at the age of 93.

Despite the incredible success of Walters, she was painfully uncertain, her friends and colleagues agree, and was particularly at the bottom of her appearance: in the documentary, Katie Couric remembers that she said: “Oh, we are so identical: none of us is as attractive.”

Insecurity probably comes from the unstable childhood of Walters.

She grew up in Boston with a Father Showman who directed a nightclub, where she was able to meet stars like Frank Sinatra. But when the nightclub rose on their stomachs, the family lost everything they had and Walters had to go to work to support their parents and older sister, Jaqueline, who was challenged by development.

“She took this responsibility very seriously,” said her friend, the former correspondent of NBC, Cynthia McFadden, about Walters becoming the only family support, first as a writer for the Today show, Where she finally appeared on television segments.

In 1976, ABC hired him as the first female co-album of the network, opposite Harry Reasoner. In many ways, it was a dream work that no woman had never done before. In reality, it was horrible. She endured the endless intimidation of the Old Boys Club, who hated sharing the spotlight with a woman.

“Harry was downright rude to her,” said McFadden. The film shows other male colleagues who slip it. “I would enter this studio, and Harry would have seated with the handicaps, and they would all do jokes and ignore me.

Despite the sexist forces that worked against her, Walters turned out to be a great interviewer and received her own specials from 1976.

“She asked the questions that no one was asking,” said Oprah Winfrey in the film. Of course, it was not always a welcome thing.

“Some of her interviews have not aged well,” said McFadden about his invasive questions laughing, while Midler agrees that “sometimes she has submitted to people’s skin”. In his very first special, recorded in 1976, Walters asked Barbra Streisand: “Why didn’t you repair the nose?”

In another interview, she asked Vladimir Putin if he had “never ordered someone killed”. She had once looked at Martha Stewart Square in the eyes and said: “Martha, why so many people hate you?” When Martha replied that everyone had people who loved them and hated them, she said, “No, everyone has no people who hate them.”

In 2014, she said to the Kardashians, who then rose stars of reality: “You do not act, you do not sing, you do not dance, you do not have one – forgive me – talent.” Taylor Swift became obviously agitated with her when Walters asked her to dissuade the contenders because she could write songs about them. Said McFadden: “No one left an unharmed barbara interview.”

To find out more about Barbara Walters, take the latest issue of People, on the stands on Friday

Those who knew best say that she was doing her work just. “You have never seen someone more prepared,” said Sloan de Walters, who passed his questions several times, written on files.

“And she really changed the way people ask questions. Can you imagine sitting in front of Chris Christie, then governor of New Jersey, who presented himself for the president and said:” Are you not too big to be president? “But these are the things that people who looked at home on their sofas really wanted to know.”

Barbara Walters tells me everything will make his debut on Hulu on June 23.