How Barbara Walters struggled to balance motherhood with her career

Barbara Walters is best known as the legendary TV broadcaster who convinced world leaders, celebrities and controversial figures to bare their souls before audiences of millions. However, Walters’ incredible career is only part of her story.

Through new interviews and archival material, the feature-length documentary “Barbara Walters Tell Me Everything” puts the full complexity of this journalistic icon on display. That includes a major part of her private life: her relationship with her daughter Jacqueline (Jackie).

The documentary “Barbara Walters Tell Me Everything” is streaming on Hulu and Hulu on Disney+.

Walters joined ABC News in 1976, becoming the first female anchor on its evening news program. Three years later, she became a co-host of “20/20,” and in 1997, she launched “The View.” She retired in 2016 and died in 2022, aged 93.

In 1968, after three miscarriages, Walters and second husband Lee Guber adopted Jacqueline (Jackie). She named her daughter after her sister, who was born developmentally disabled. In her 2008 memoir “Audition,” Walters wrote that she wanted her sister to “feel that she, too, has a child, because I knew by this time she never would.”

In a candid 1977 hot mic moment, the documentary shows her whispering with musician Dolly Parton about her decision to adopt during an interview.

“For me, it was the best thing I ever did,” Walters told Parton.

Despite the joy being a mother brought her, Walters acknowledged the toll her career took on her marriage — she and Guber got divorced in 1976.

“I don’t think I was very good at marriage. It may be that my career was just too important,” she said in the 2014 ABC News special “Her Story.” “It may have been that I was a difficult person to be married to and I wasn’t willing perhaps to give that much.”

Her career created parenting challenges as well.

“Today, people are more accepting. You can bring your kid to the office. In those days, if I had brought Jackie into the studio, it would be as if I had brought a dog who was not housebroken,” Walters said during the “Her Story” special.

That led to challenges when Jackie was a teenager, Walters said in the 2008 ABC News special “Audition.”

“I didn’t realize how tough it was because she had a mother who was a celebrity. We struggled through schools, and then finally at one point when she was 16, I guess, she ran away,” she said. “And finally when I found out where she was, I had someone pick her up and take her to an emotional growth school, which is what it was called. She was there for three years.”

Broadcaster Oprah Winfrey, a friend of Walters, spoke in the new documentary about the “charged, complex relationship” between mother and daughter.

“I remember her telling me once that there’s nothing more fulfilling than having children, and you should really think about it. And I was like ‘OK, but I’m looking at you. So no,'” she said.

Winfrey said their challenging relationship that may have been part of the price Walters paid to become a legend.

“You are a pioneer in your field, and you are trying to break the mold for yourself and the women who follow you, then something’s going to have to give for that,” she said. “And that is why I did not have children. I knew I could not do both well.”

Winfrey noted that Walters’ ambition was a factor — she was always chasing the next big interview.

“Both are sacrifices, sacrifice to do the work, and it’s also a sacrifice to be the mother and to say no, let somebody else have that,” Winfrey said. “And at no time have I ever heard a story, read a story, and based on what I know of Barbara Walters, at no time has Barbara Walters ever said ‘No, let someone else take that story.'”

Former “Nightline” and ABC News correspondent Cynthia McFadden noted in the documentary that Walters wasn’t raising her daughter alone.

“It’s important to say Jackie had a father. And Jackie had a governess. So it wasn’t like Jackie was left alone in a playpen,” she said. “Barbara articulated many times that she had made mistakes as a mother, that she had made choices for herself, for her work.”

Jackie spoke to McFadden about her upbringing and the challenge of fitting into Walters’ for 2001 ABC special “Born in My Heart: A Love Story,” which looked at families with adopted children. McFadden — herself an adoptee — asked Jackie which was more challenging — being adopted or being a famous woman’s child.

“Oh, being the child of a famous woman, hands down,” she said.

In the documentary, McFadden said Walters’ ambition and Jackie’s noncompetitive disposition accounted for some of the friction between them.

“I’ve said I’m sorry for so many things. I’ve put her through all that torture,” Jackie said in 2001. “I was sorry for my whole teenage years. It was awful.”

Walters felt that the relationship grew “shaky” again as she got older, according to McFadden. Despite her legendary status, Walters expressed sadness about the sacrifices she made in the 2004 ABC News special “Art of the Conversation.”

“I have a friend for example, who’s got four children and 11 grandchildren, and she says ‘Look at your life,’ she said. “And I said ‘Look at your life. I mean, how rich you are, four children, 11 grandchildren — that’s richness.’ But I don’t have that. I didn’t take that path.”

Jackie did not respond to an invitation to participate in the new documentary.