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'I was certainly - I don't know - I was certainly infatuated,' Walters says. -- PHOTO: AP
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NEW YORK - AFTER three decades of keeping quiet, television personality Barbara Walters is disclosing a past affair with married US Senator Edward Brooke, whom she remembers as 'exciting' and 'brilliant'. In an appearance on The Oprah Winfrey Show scheduled to air on Tuesday, Walters shares details of her relationship with Mr Brooke that lasted several years in the 1970s, according to a transcript of the show.
Mr Brooke, a moderate Republican from Massachusetts who took office in 1967, was the first African-American to be popularly elected to the Senate. Both he and Walters knew that public knowledge of their affair could have ruined his career as well as hers, Walters says.
At the time, the twice-divorced Walters was a rising star in TV news and co-host of NBC's Today show, but would soon jump to ABC News, where she has enjoyed unrivaled success. Her affair with Mr Brooke, which never before came to light, ended before he lost his bid for a third term in 1978.
Mr Brooke later divorced, and has since remarried. Calls to a listing for Brooke in Miami were not immediately returned on Thursday.
Walters is a guest of Oprah Winfrey to discuss her new memoir, Audition, which covers her long career in television, as well as her off-camera life. On Oprah, Walters recounts a phone call from a friend who urged her to stop seeing Brooke.
'He said, 'This is going to come out. This is going to ruin your career,'' then reminded her that Mr Brooke was up for re-election a year later. 'This is going to ruin him. You've got to break this off.' Winfrey asks Walters if she was in love.
'I was certainly - I don't know - I was certainly infatuated,' Walters says.
'I was certainly involved,' Walters says. 'He was exciting. He was brilliant. It was exciting times in Washington.' Also during the programme, Walters chokes up while describing the struggles of her older sister Jackie, who was mentally retarded.
Walters confesses that, as a child, she sometimes felt embarrassed by Jackie.
'She stuttered terribly. People made fun of her. People made fun of me,' Walters says. 'I didn't bring friends home. I felt terribly guilty because she was very loving, and I didn't always feel that way.' Jackie Walters died in 1985 of ovarian cancer.
'When I think of her, because she was beautiful and loving and all of that, it makes me cry.' -- AP
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