Barbara Walters, 93, died at home surrounded by loved ones, according to TMZ.
Barbara Walters was one of the most well-known names in journalism. During her illustrious career, she garnered various honors, including a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame and Emmy Awards.
She pioneered a new type of “personality journalism,” adding a personal touch to her interviews, which earned her a broad variety of interviews with famous individuals, like Fidel Castro, the Dalai Lama, and Margareth Tatcher, to name a few.
Walters was the first woman to co-host an American news show and the first woman to co-anchor a network nightly news program. Her unique personality and interview style made her stand out.
Her career has been beyond anything she could have imagined, as evidenced by the number of awards she has received and as she stated in an interview with Piers Morgan for CNN.
In terms of his personal life, Walters has a few regrets, one of which is not having more children or a larger family.
Her remorse, however, is not due to a lack of effort. The 92-year-old experienced three miscarriages before deciding to adopt a child called Jackie with her second husband, Lee Guber, at the age of 39.
She told the ABC News Special in 2014 that she was too focused on her profession and that she could have spent more time with her daughter.
“Are you going to say on your deathbed, “I wish I spent more time in the office?” ” No. “I wish I spent more time with my family,” you’ll remark.
Walters, who has been married four times, confessed that she frequently prioritized her profession, and she may believe she is a “tough person to be married to.”
Despite “not being very adept at marriage,” as she put it, she had always wanted to have children. Walters and her then-husband Lee Guber, whom she was married to from 1963 until 1976, intended to start a family.
Walters and Guber had suffered heartbreak and loss before considering adoption. However, there appeared to be “no coincidence” that the couple should not have a biological daughter. So life offered them an unexpected incentive to become parents.
One evening, the couple went out to supper with friends they hadn’t seen in a long time. Guber and Walters indicated that they and their pals were thinking of adopting a kid. According to Guber, after that supper, their hearts were set on adopting a baby girl.
Jackie Dena Guber, named after Walters’ mentally challenged sister who died in 1985, has her own challenges growing up with a celebrity mom.
Perhaps her ability to cope with her mother’s departure stemmed from her exploration of an unknown yet dangerous realm, which was far beyond her adolescent realities at the time.
Rebellion is a normal way for many teenagers to focus their emotions and energies as they grow older. Dena Guber famously ran away from home multiple times, causing significant distress to her parents, particularly her mother.
She went away from home as an escape. Dena Guber later said that she didn’t fit into her mother’s environment and that, at the time, running away felt wonderful since she thought it would fix her issues.
In order to avoid attention, the runaway turned to narcotics. Jackie vanished for a month when she was 15 and returned home after hitching a ride with a guy who phoned Walters to inquire about the whereabouts of her 15-year-old daughter.
The former journalist picked up her daughter and took her to an Idaho recovery center, where she stayed for three years. During this time, she graduated from high school, and her father, Lee, died of cancer.
Years later, as a recovering drug addict, Dena Guber developed New Horizons, an intervention program for young women, and therapeutic counseling to assist them in treating addiction concerns. However, after many years of success, the program was discontinued in 2008.
Dena Guber spoke frankly about her drug usage as a kid in 2003. “But it didn’t take away the troubles that I had,” she stated of her drug usage. They became larger and larger. “I was becoming increasingly cut off from my mother’s world.”
Dena Guber spent her whole life trying to avoid the spotlight, which is why she took her father’s surname instead of Walters. It’s difficult to locate anything on her due to her efforts to keep her life private.
She had two marriages. Her first marriage to Mark Danforth lasted 10 years, although she continued to use his surname for many years afterward. As a result, the media referred to her as Jackie Danforth.
Walters’ lone daughter rose to prominence in 2019 during her mother’s health issues; she hadn’t been seen since 2013, when her DUI arrest in Florida made the news. She was released on $1,000 bail.