Eight months after the death of famous broadcast journalist Barbara Walters, her final words have been revealed, which suggest that she had lived a life well-spent.
According to the upcoming biography, “The Rulebreaker: The Life and Times of Barbara Walters,” by USA Today Washington bureau chief Susan Page (via Axios), Walter said on her deathbed, “No regrets — I had a great life.”
In a statement, publisher Simon & Schuster described the book, which will hit shelves in April 2024, as “the definitive biography of the most successful female broadcaster of all time … whose personal demons fueled an ambition that broke all the rules.”
Eight years after her retirement from her trailblazing television career, Walters died at the age of 93 in December 2022. Before leaving “The View” after 17 seasons, the show that she created and co-hosted, Walters had been struggling with various health issues including a bout with chicken pox.
“One day, just as the show ended, she collapsed into the arms of a stage manager,” Variety co-editor-in-chief Ramin Setoodeh wrote in his 2019 book, “Ladies Who Punch: The Explosive Inside Story of ‘The View.’” “She had to be taken to the greenroom, where they laid her down on a sofa. The staff called the paramedics.”
Walters’ retirement was filled with melancholy celebration, as ABC aired a two-hour primetime special chronicling her career, as well as renaming its Upper West Side news division headquarters the Barbara Walters Building.
After her retirement, the former “Today” show host stayed out of the public eye, making her final major public appearance in 2016, six years before her death, when she attended the opening night of “The Father” at the Samuel J. Friedman Theatre in New York City.
The forthcoming biography will also reveal Walters’ final resting place, writing, “Barbara was buried, as she had wished, next to [family members] at Lakeside Memorial Park in Miami,” writes Page, with a grave featuring her name, years of birth and death and her final words.
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