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Barbara Walters confesses affair with senator to Mother Superior Oprah

May 1st, 2008 by Scott Marks

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It was a meeting of daytime TV’s two biggest yentas, Barbara Walters and Oprah Winfrey. Walters brought her view to Harpo Studios and, not to be upstaged on Winfrey’s turf, Babs let loose a powerhouse piece of personal gossip: She revealed a past affair with married U.S. Senator Edward Brooke, whom she remembers as “exciting” and “bwilliant.”

In a further attempt to sell copies of her new memoir Audition, Walters also blubbered on about guilt pains she harbored over her mentally retarded sister.

Appearing on The Oprah Winfrey Show scheduled to air Tuesday, Walters shares details of her relationship with Brooke that lasted several years in the 1970s, according to a transcript of the show provided to The Associated Press.

A moderate Republican from Massachusetts who took office in 1967, Brooke was the first African-American to be popularly elected to the Senate.

He was African-American and a Republican? How does that happen? Okay, now I understand why she offered the gossip to O instead of sharing the exclusive with her hobgoblins on The View.

At the time, Walters had already gone through two husbands and was still co-hosting NBC’s Today show. Walters admits that public knowledge of their affair could have ruined his career as well as hers.

Walters also talks openly (and tearfully) about her oyngaboodle sibling Jackie. Walters confesses that, as a child, she sometimes felt embarrassed by her older, mentally retarded sister. Now she knows how Star Jones felt.

“(Jackie) stuttered terribly. People made fun of her. People made fun of me,” Walters says. “I didn’t bring friends home. I felt terribly guilty because she was very loving and I didn’t always feel that way.”

Jackie Walters died in 1985 of ovarian cancer.When the AP uses the term “chokes up,” I take notice. Let’s hope that Babs will make an upcoming cameo in my crybaby reel.

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