In what might be the most influential career advice never actually given, it appears Barbara Walters inadvertently convinced Oprah Winfrey to forgo motherhood simply by living her own complicated truth.
The revelation comes to light in the buzzworthy new documentary Barbara Walters Tell Me Everything, which premiered at the Tribeca Festival and heads to Hulu on June 23rd. Among its many revelations about the pioneering journalist who died in 2022, perhaps none is more personally revealing than the impact Walters’ maternal struggles had on her famous contemporary. According to Winfrey’s candid comments in the film, what began as standard encouragement from one powerful woman to another — “There’s nothing more fulfilling than having children,” Walters reportedly told her — ended with Oprah making a life-altering decision based on what she observed rather than what she heard.
