She enjoyed the view.
Barbara Walters’ final words have been revealed eight months after the broadcast journalist’s death.
“No regrets — I had a great life,” Walters uttered, according to the upcoming biography “The Rulebreaker: The Life and Times of Barbara Walters” by USA Today Washington bureau chief Susan Page (via Axios).
Simon & Schuster said in a statement that the book, which hits stores in April 2024, is “the definitive biography of the most successful female broadcaster of all time … whose personal demons fueled an ambition that broke all the rules.”
Walters died at the age of 93 in December 2022, eight years after she retired from her trailblazing television career.
Prior to leaving “The View” after 17 seasons, the ABC talk show’s creator and co-host had been struggling with various health issues including a bout with chicken pox.
“One day, just as the show ended, she collapsed into the arms of a stage manager,” PvNew co-editor-in-chief Ramin Setoodeh wrote in his 2019 book, “Ladies Who Punch: The Explosive Inside Story of ‘The View.’”
“She had to be taken to the greenroom, where they laid her down on a sofa. The staff called the paramedics.”
ABC pulled out the stops to announce Walters’ retirement, airing a two-hour primetime special chronicling her storied career and renaming its Upper West Side news division headquarters the Barbara Walters Building.
The former “Today” show host stayed out of the public eye following her retirement.
Her final public appearance was in 2016 when she attended the opening night of “The Father” at the Samuel J. Friedman Theatre in New York City.
In her forthcoming biography, Page also reveals Walters’ final resting place.
“Barbara was buried, as she had wished, next to [family members] at Lakeside Memorial Park in Miami,” she writes.
The “20/20” correspondent’s gravesite features her name, years of birth and death and her final words.
