Barbara Walters’ ‘final words’ revealed eight months after her death!

2 September 2023

Barbara Walters’ final words are said to have been: “No regrets – I had a great life”.

Barbara Walters’ final words are said to have been: ‘No regrets – I had a great life’

The broadcaster, who died at the age of 93 in December, eight years after she retired from her trailblazing television career and amid a dementia battle, apparently uttered the statement on her deathbed according to an upcoming “definitive” biography of the journalist.

Publishing giant Simon and Schuster said in a statement that the book ‘The Rulebreaker: The Life and Times of Barbara Walters’ by USA Today’s Washington bureau chief Susan Page, which is due out in April 2024, is “the definitive biography of the most successful female broadcaster of all time… whose personal demons fuelled an ambition that broke all the rules”.

The book also reveals Barbara’s final resting place, according to Page Six.

It said Susan writes in the tome: “Barbara was buried, as she had wished, next to [family members] at Lakeside Memorial Park in Miami.”

Apparently Barbara’s gravesite features her name, years of birth and death – and her final words.

Before Barbara – who created ABC talk show ‘The View’ – left her show after 17 seasons, she had been struggling with various health issues including a bout with chicken pox.

In 2010, the three-times married mum-of-one announced she would be having an open-heart operation to replace a faulty aortic valve.

She had known she was suffering from aortic stenosis, even though she was symptom-free, and four days after the operation, Barbara's spokeswoman Cindi Berger said the procedure to fix the faulty heart valve “went well, and the doctors are very pleased with the outcome”.

Barbara returned to ‘The View’ and her SiriusXM show ‘Here’s Barbara’ in September 2010.

Variety co-editor-in-chief Ramin Setoodeh wrote in his 2019 book ‘Ladies Who Punch: The Explosive Inside Story of The View’: “One day, just as the show ended, (Barbara) collapsed into the arms of a stage manager.

“She had to be taken to the greenroom, where they laid her down on a sofa. The staff called the paramedics.”

ABC honoured Barbara’s retirement, with two-hour primetime special chronicling her career and renamed its Upper West Side news division headquarters the Barbara Walters Building.