Barbara Walters ‘secretly resented’ Diane Sawyer, colleague says she tried to sabotage Katharine Hepburn interview

Cynthia McFadden said Walters was “dogged by Diane’s very existence,” and revealed in a new film that Walters “put a lot of pressure on Kate to unbook” a Sawyer interview.

Diane Sawyer and Barbara Walters.Credit: 

Noam Galai/WireImage

Broadcast icon Barbara Walters put up a stern front as she navigated some of the most high-profile televised interviews of the modern era, but ex-colleagues and friends reveal in the new Tell Me Everything documentary about her life that her behind-the-scenes sentiment regarding fellow TV journalist Diane Sawyer had a far more volatile dynamic.

The new film delves deep into Walters’ early life through to her prowess as the co-creator of The View, but it also highlights a sensitive point in the 20/20 personality’s career at ABC, following the rise of Sawyer after the latter left 60 Minutes and CBS to forge a new deal on the newsmagazine track at Walters’ home network in 1989.

“Barbara did not know why Diane was hired to start a new newsmagazine within our home of ABC to compete with 20/20. There was talk about that being a different 20/20, a better 2020, a more lively 20/20, a more energetic 20/20. Barbara was unhappy,” said Victor Neufeld, a former executive producer at ABC News, in the movie.

Added Martin Clancy, another ex-ABC News producer, “Barbara saw herself as someone who’d helped elevate ABC News to a pinnacle, that had her feelings betrayed by the Diane arrival.”

Barbara Walters.Larry Busacca/Getty

Clancy recalled that “Barbara watched Diane wearily, because she was in the same altitude as Barbara,” and that Walters felt that “other correspondents were not a threat” to her because they weren’t directly pitted against each other, with similar scopes in coverage.

“I think Barbara secretly resented Diane for being younger,” Clancy added, later noting, “[ABC News President Roone Arledge] pitted them against each other, which was either great management or diabolical. They were on different floors, their edit rooms were put aside to another part of the floor. North Korea, South Korea. No members of our staffs talked to each other about what they were working on.”

The film then spliced in a bit of footage from an interview that saw Walters address the reported tension between the women, admitting, “I don’t think Diane Sawyer and I had a feud; I think people know that we were after the same gets.”

Trailblazing news anchor Connie Chung also appeared in the film, recalling a “monstrous battle to win stories” between Walters and Sawyer, and said she felt “caught in the middle” during her time at ABC as well.

On that note, Walters’ longtime friend and fellow TV journalist Cynthia McFadden then recounted Walters’ alleged plot to sabotage a major interview Sawyer landed with Hollywood legend Katharine Hepburn.

“Diane had booked, fair and square, Katharine Hepburn, and Barbara, who knew Katharine Hepburn, put a lot of pressure on Kate to unbook and go with her,” McFadden remembered. “You know, Kate said, ‘No, no. I promised Diane, and I will do it with her.’ And she did.”

McFadden also stressed the reasons she felt Walters had such particular feelings about Sawyer, and they dated back to childhood issues and insecurities.

Diane Sawyer.NBC/Jamie McCarthy/NBC via Getty

“I never had a conversation with Diane Sawyer about her feelings about Barbara. But, I had plenty with Barbara about her feelings about Diane, because she was certainly dogged by Diane’s very existence,” McFadden said. “She often said Diane was the perfect woman. She used the words, ‘a blonde goddess,’ this ideal woman, and that she, Barbara, couldn’t compete with that. She could work harder, she could know more people, but she couldn’t compete with that, the blonde goddess.”

Added McFadden, “She couldn’t tolerate having Diane Sawyer rise in what she saw as a direct challenge to what she had accomplished. What a sadness. Talk about the death of joy. I think it tore into all those parts of herself where she felt, as a child, she was an outsider. In some bizarre way, Diane made her feel all of those insecurities all over again.”

The Tell Me Everything documentary also covers some of Walters’ invasive questions throughout her career, including when she told the Kardashians to their faces that they “don’t have any talent,” and inquired about Lady Gaga’s sexuality in another discussion.

Walters’ 1999 interview with Monica Lewinsky has also been reassessed recent years, as Walters grilled the former White House intern about being called a “bimbo” and a “seductress,” and asked if she felt like she engaged in something that was “bad for the country” over her affair with then-President Bill Clinton.

In a separate conversation, McFadden eventually told PEOPLE that “some of her interviews haven’t aged well” in hindsight.