Sherri Shepherd and Pleasure Behar are spilling the tea about Barbara Walters’ alleged hookup with comic Richard Pryor.
Shepherd, 56, and Behar, 81, reminisced about their time working with Walters — who died at age 93 in December 2022 — throughout the Wednesday, October 11, episode of Shepherd’s daytime discuss present, Sherri.
“I got here in and I advised you, ‘[Late comedian] Paul Mooney mentioned he caught Barbara with Richard Pryor, he walked in on them.’ And I mentioned, ‘Don’t inform no one,’” Shepherd recalled.
Though Shepherd — who labored with Behar on The View, which Walters created, from 2007 to 2013 — wished to maintain the knowledge a secret, her costar didn’t waste time asking Walters concerning the rumor.
“The following day, Barbara walks in and also you go, ‘So, you [schtupping] Richard Pryor, huh?’” Shepherd recounted. “[Barbara] circled … and he or she goes, ‘Who advised you that?’ And I’m sitting there like, ‘I finished simply received this job.’”
Neither Shepherd nor Behar mentioned whether or not Walters confirmed or denied the story about herself and Pryor, who died at age 65 in December 2005. Nonetheless, Behar did declare that Pryor was the published journalist’s sort.
Richard Pryor being interviewed by Barbara Walters, 1980. Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Photographs
“Barbara preferred a brother. She was going out with a Black senator,” Behar mentioned, referring to Edward Brooke. (In her 2008 autobiography, Audition, Walters recalled having an affair with Brooke, who died at age 95 in 2015, within the Nineteen Seventies.)
Shepherd echoed the feelings, saying, “[Former Secretary of State] Colin Powell was her crush.”
Barbara Walters Via the Years: Photographs
A tv icon. Barbara Walters spent six many years as a hard-hitting journalist — interviewing everybody from controversial political leaders to among the world’s most high-profile stars — previous to her retirement in 2014. Walters kicked off her profession within the Sixties on the Right this moment present, the place she went from working behind the scenes as […]
Along with discussing Walters’ romantic preferences, Shepherd admitted to being intimidated by the tv icon.
“You preferred it that I used to be petrified of Barbara Walters. You used to snort,” Shepherd advised Behar. When Behar requested the actress what she discovered scary about Walters, Shepherd replied: “I don’t know. She was simply so formidable.”
After Walters’ dying, Behar sang her former costar’s praises throughout a December 2022 interview with Good Morning America.
“She’s very a lot the position mannequin for lots of people in showbiz and the information world for positive,” she mentioned. “She had a piece ethic you couldn’t deny. She was at all times ready and he or she was at all times engaged on her materials. She by no means went on the market and didn’t know what she was doing.”
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Barbara Walters was a broadcasting pioneer, interviewing dozens of well-known faces from former President Richard Nixon to pop star Taylor Swift. “I do my homework, so I’ve a sure sense of authority,” the previous View cohost — who died on December 30, 2022, on the age of 93 — completely advised Us Weekly in Could 2014 of getting ready […]
Behar additionally joked that Walters landed her many high-profile interviews as a result of her “unbelievable bladder” management.
“[She] by no means went to the toilet,” the comic defined. “And that’s why she might at all times soar on these interviews earlier than anyone else did.”
Behar lovingly poked enjoyable at Walters’ legacy once more earlier this month when Spice Women singer Geri Halliwell introduced up Walters’ signature smile throughout an look on The View. Noting that an individual’s mouth must be “barely open” to nail the Walters smile, Behar quipped, “Effectively, these are from her porn days.”
After the comment elected a shocked response from the present’s viewers, Behar clarified, “I’m kidding. They comprehend it’s a joke.”
