Was Barbara Walters married? All about her husbands and kids as legendary TV anchor dies aged 93

Legendary TV anchor Barbara Walters passed away on December 30 at the age of 93. The news of her demise was announced in an official statement by her publicist Cindi Berger, who wrote:

“Barbara Walters passed away peacefully in her home surrounded by loved ones.She lived her life with no regrets. She was a trailblazer not only for female journalists, but for all women.”

With a career spanning across nearly 60 years, Walters became one of the biggest and most recognized journalists all around the world. She rose to fame in 1960s with her coverage of then-President John F. Kennedy's assassination.

Walters joined NBC’s The Today Show as a writer and researcher and went on to become their first female co-host. She also made history by becoming the first US female network news anchor to join ABC News in 1976.

The journalist continued to garner popularity with her work in ABC’s 20/20 and eventually co-created the network’s popular daytime talk show The View. Walter’s final on-air interview was with Donald Trump in 2015.

Barbara Walters had three husbands and was married four times in her lifetime. She also shared adopted daughter Jacqueline Dena Walters with her second husband Lee Guber.

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Everything to know about Barbara Walters’ marriages and children

Walters reportedly stayed out of the public eye and maintained a private life following her retirement from the news industry. She previously suffered from aortic valve stenosis and underwent successful open heart surgery to replace a faulty aortic valve in 2010.

However, her health reportedly declined in the past few years prior to her recent death. She eventually passed away at her Manhattan home surrounded by her loved ones.

Barbara Walters’ first husband was business executive and former Navy lieutenant Robert Henry Katz. The pair tied the knot on June 20, 1955, at the Plaza Hotel in New York City, when the former was 26 years old.

Unfortunately, the marriage failed to last long and the duo filed for divorce in 1957. Their marriage was officially annulled the following year. Walters married her second husband, producer and theater owner Lee Guber on December 8, 1963.

Guber and Walters explored the idea of starting a family but struggled to have a child of their own. According to the Huffington Post, the journalist once told Oprah Winfrey that she had three miscarriages before finally deciding to opt for adoption.

Walters told the publication that she and Guber found their adopted daughter through friends who were looking to adopt a boy and were offered a girl:

“We had dinner one night with a couple we rarely saw. The woman said that she had [the opportunity to adopt] a little girl who was blonde and blue eyed. We said, ‘We’ll take the girl!'”

The couple officially adopted their daughter as an infant in 1968. Barbara Walters named the girl Jacqueline Dena Walters after her mother Dena and her sister Jacqueline in an attempt to pay tribute to her own childhood. Speaking about her daughter, the TV anchor told Pop Culture in 2013:

“To be Jacqueline…is a very special person. In that way, perhaps it’s like me, her mother. And she says, ‘You see, I take after you.’ Whenever she says that, I’m so touched.”

Walters and Guber’s relationship came to an end after 13 years of marriage, and the pair got divorced in 1976, when their daughter was just eight years old.

Following her second divorce, Barbara Walters met her third husband, the CEO of Lorimar Television, Merv Adelson, through a blind date. The duo walked down the aisle in 1981 but parted ways through a divorce in 1984. However, they decided to rekindle their relationship and remarried in 1986.

Unfortunately, the couple failed to maintain their marriage for the second time and ended up divorcing for the second time in 1992. Walters told The New York Times that she remained friends with Adelson long after their marriage and eventual divorce:

“Merv was a kind and gentle man with a great sense of humor. We stayed friends long after our marriage.”

According to TMZ, Barbara Walters also had some high-profile relationships during her lifetime. She reportedly dated attorney Roy Cohn in college and was in a relationship with future U.S. Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan in 1970s.

She even sparked romance rumors with United States Senator John Warner in 1990s. In her autobiography Audition, Barbara Walters wrote that she had an affair with Senator Edward Brooke in 1970s. The journalist also dated Pulitzer Prize-winning gerontologist Robert Neil Butler in 2007.