American broadcaster and TV interviewer Barbara Walters has died.
ABC news announced that she had passed away on Friday - she was 93 at the time of her death - with a flood of tributes pouring out for the icon soon after her passing was revealed.
Bob Iger, CEO of Disney who owns the ABC network where Barbara worked, paid tribute to the star in a statement.
He said: “I have sad news to share today as Barbara Walters passed away this evening at her home in New York.
“Barbara was a true legend, a pioneer, not just for women in journalism, but for journalism itself.
“She was a one of a kind reporter who landed many of the most important interviews of our time; from heads of state to the biggest celebrities and sports icons.
“I had the pleasure of calling Barbara a colleague for more than three decades. More importantly, I was able to call her a dear friend.
“She will be missed by all of us at the Walt Disney company and we send our deepest condolences to her daughter.”
Barbara was born on 25 September 1929 in Boston, Massachusetts, and worked as a publicist and magazine journalist before finding her way on screen as a broadcast journalist.
She broke into the American public eye in November 1963 when she reported the assassination of President John F Kennedy - reporting the story alongside co-host Hugh Downs.
She initially worked on NBC’s Today show - where she became their first female cohost.
Barbara then moved network to work with ABC where she hosted a job on their Evening News show - and became the first woman to anchor a network news show.
While at ABC she worked on the 20/20 show - where she landed huge interviews with stars including Katharine Hepburn, Fidel Castro, Monica Lewinsky, Michael Jackson, Patrick Swayze and many, many more.
She was respected and known for her hard hitting interviews where she would often ask direct, abrupt questions - and was revered for her technique which encouraged those in her hot seat to answer the hard questions.
She then stepped out of the public eye and last gave a public appearance in 2016 and has been out of the spotlight since.
Her cause of death has not yet been revealed.
Away from work, Barbara was married four times to three different men - first to a business executive and former Navy lieutenant named Robert Henry Katz, in 1955 and they divorced in 1957.
Her second husband was to a theatre producer named Lee Guber - tying-the-knot in 1963, and they divorced in 1976 - but the couple adopted a daughter named Jacqueline Dena Guber in1968.
While her third husband was Merv Adelson, CEO of Lorimar Television, who she first married in 1981, divorced in 1984, remarried in 1986 and then divorced again in 1992.
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