Renowned TV personality Barbara Walters dies at 93-years-old
Iconic television personality Barbara Walters has passed away at the age of 93-years-old.
"She lived her life with no regrets. She was a trailblazer not only for female journalists, but for all women," Walters' publicist Cindi Berger said in a statement, according to the Associated Press.
Over her decades-long career, Walters work ranged from being a news anchor, to interviewing major celebrities, to appearing on "The View," a show that she created with Bill Geddie, according to the New York Times. A message posted on The View's Twitter page said that Walters had created the show "in 1997 to champion women's voices."
\u201chttps://t.co/Hq5tokTezh\u201d— The View (@The View) 1672460115
The New York Times noted that Walters was the first woman co-host on the "Today" show and the first woman to serve as an anchor on a network evening news show. Walters had co-anchored "ABC Evening News."
\u201cOn October 4, 1976, Barbara Walters made her debut on ABC News, co-anchoring "ABC Evening News\u201d with Harry Reasoner. https://t.co/si1Q0HuMgW\u201d— ABC News (@ABC News) 1672458122
Walters landed interviews with each president and First Lady all the way from Richard and Pat Nixon through Barack and Michelle Obama, according to the New York Times, which also noted that she had interviewed Donald and Melania Trump amid Trump's presidential campaign. She also interviewed major celebrities like Michael Jackson and Katharine Hepburn.
"I'm not afraid when I'm interviewing, I have no fear!” Walters said in 2008, according to the Associated Press.
Robert Iger, CEO of The Walt Disney Company, described Walters as "a true legend, a pioneer not just for women in journalism but for journalism itself. She was a one-of-a-kind reporter who landed many of the most important interviews of our time, from heads of state and leaders of regimes to the biggest celebrities and sports icons," Iger noted.
\u201cI have sad news to share today. Barbara Walters passed away this evening at her home in New York.\u201d— Robert Iger (@Robert Iger) 1672454995
Brooke Shields calls out Barbara Walters for 'practically criminal' teenage interview rife with sexual innuendo
Actress and model Brooke Shields, now 56, said recently that her famous interview with Barbara Walters, which took place in the 1980s when Shields was just a 15-year-old girl, was "practically criminal."
What are the details?
During an interview with Dax Shepard on his "Armchair Expert" podcast, Shields recalled a time during the early '80s when she was particularly uncomfortable during an interview with a woman who was supposed to be an ally.
The 1981 interview took place amid the wildly popular Calvin Klein jeans ad for which Shields became a modeling world staple.
The ad featured a teen Shields asking, "You want to know what comes between me and my Calvins? Nothing."
"I was very naive," Shields said of the sexually charged, double-entendre commercial during an October Vogue interview. "I didn't think it had to do with underwear. I didn't think it was sexual in nature. I'd say that about my sister, nobody could come between me and my sister. ... If they had intended on the double-entendre, they didn't explain it to me. It didn't faze me. It didn't sort of come into my psyche as it being anything overtly sexual, sexualized in anyway."
The televised interview with Walters, however, was a horse of a different color.
During the interview, Walters asked myriad intimate questions about fresh-faced, soft-spoken Shields' body and sexual history, even though she was just 15 years old at the time.
Shields told Shepard that some of the more personally invasive questions included "What are your measurements?" and "Do you have any secrets from your mother?"
"It's practically criminal," she said of Walters' conduct. "It's not journalism."
Shepard agreed, calling it "maddening."
He added that the 1980s media at the time created "competing narratives" about Shields and said that much of the media said that the teen was a "sexual tigress" with "overtly sexual" tendencies, but other media outlets said that the "naive" teen was "being taken advantage of."
Shields agreed and said that those insisting that she was naive were correct.
She added, "They were mad at themselves for not figuring it out and taking it out on me."
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