Barbara Walters Is Remembered as a Trailblazer, and a Friend

Monica Lewinsky said that she had first met Ms. Walters in 1998, amid the impeachment scandal following President Bill Clinton’s sexual involvement with Ms. Lewinsky during the time she was a White House intern. “She was the very first person with whom I ever sat for a television interview,” Ms. Lewinsky wrote on Twitter.

When speaking to Ms. Walters then, she remarked that it was the first time she had ever been in “serious trouble.”

“I’d basically been a good kid,” she said, “got good grades, didn’t do drugs, never shoplifted.” She recalled Ms. Walters saying without missing a beat: “Monica, next time shoplift.”

The actor Hugh Jackman said that Ms. Walters was “wickedly funny, endlessly curious, generous, open hearted and a good friend.”

“She also gave some of the most memorable dinner parties we’ve ever been to,” he wrote on Facebook.

Don Lemon, the CNN anchor, said that “sitting next to her at a dinner party was the best seat in the house.”

“She was obviously amazing on television,” he wrote on Facebook. “But I selfishly loved spending time with her in person.”

The N.B.A. Hall of Famer Kareem Abdul-Jabbar said that she never flinched when questioning the world’s most powerful people. “She held them accountable,” he wrote on Twitter. “She cared about the truth and she made us care too. Fortunately, she inspired many other journalists to be just as unrelenting.”

Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/12/30/business/media/barbara-walters-reaction-tributes.html