Hulu’s Barbara Walters documentary is shedding light on her feud with Diana Sawyer.
Barbara Walters: Tell Me Everything, which premiered at Tribeca Film Festival on Thursday, June 12, featured multiple firsthand accounts about Walters and Sawyer, 79, being at odds during their time at ABC.
“Barbara did not know why Diane was hired to start a new news magazine within our home of ABC to compete with 20/20,” a former producer recalled. “There was a lot of talk about how that being a different 20/20, a better 20/20, a more alive 20/20 and more energetic 20/20.”
Walters’ former coworker recalled her being “unhappy” about the situation. “Barbara saw herself as someone who had helped elevate ABC News to a pinnacle,” they added. “And that had her feeling betrayed by Diane’s arrival in the ’90s.”
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According to another producer, Walters appeared to “secretly” resent Sawyer.
“Barbara watched Diane wearily because she was really in the same altitude as Barbara. Other correspondents were not a threat,” he noted. “Barbara secretly resented Diane for being younger. [They were] pitted against each other, which was either great management or diabolical.”
Walters — who died in 2022 — denied being at odds with Sawyer via a voiceover in the doc: , “I don’t think Diane Sawyer and I had a feud. I think people know that we were after the same [interview] gets.”
In the documentary, an ABC employee broke down the tense dynamic. “They were on different floors. It was like North Korea and South Korea, where no members of our staffs talked to each other about what they were working on,” he explained. “It was just a competitive space to live in.”
One of the issues between the former coworkers stemmed from both of them wanting to interview Katharine Hepburn. Sawyer got the chance — but not before Walters attempted to block it. Footage of Sawyer showed her poking fun at the feud claims, saying, “If I showed up on Mars, they would have a note there with the Barbara Walters stationary that is just requesting an interview with anybody who might happen to show.”
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Walters’ friend recalled the later broadcast journalist making her feelings about Sawyer known.
“She was certainly dogged by Diane’s very existence. She often said, ‘Diane was the perfect woman.’ She used the word a blonde goddess. This was an ideal woman and Barbara couldn’t compete with that. She could work harder, she could know more people but she couldn’t compete with that,” she recalled. “The blonde goddess, she would say.”
Another person who worked with Walters, noted, “She couldn’t tolerate having Diane Sawyer rise in what she saw as a direct challenge to what she had accomplished. What a sadness. I think it tore into all of those parts of herself where she felt as a child and she was an outsider. In some bizarre way, Diane made her feel all of those insecurities all over again.”
Barbara Walters: Tell Me Everything starts streaming June 23 on Hulu.
