What We Know About Barbara Walters' Complicated Relationship With Her Sister, Jackie
Barbara Walters has died at age 93. The TV journalist, known for her work on "20/20", "The View," and a number of prominent celebrity interviews, was surrounded by loved ones in her home when she passed, according to a statement from spokesperson Cindi Berger, per CNN.
Much of Walters' life was documented in her memoir, "Audition," which chronicled her troubled childhood and subsequent rise to one of the world's most legendary broadcast journalists. In an interview with ABC News, Joyce Ashley, a psychoanalyst and one of Walters' childhood friends, shared, "[Walters] always had the specter of having to take care of this family ... Her father was rather mysterious. Her mother was under a great deal of tension because her sister probably had a birth injury of some kind."
Walters' older sister was named Jackie. "My sister was three and a half years older, but from the time she was born, they knew there was something wrong," Walters explained of her sister's disability, per ABC News. Walters' sister's condition put a strain on the star's childhood, which she was later able to open up about.
Barbara Walters' sister's disability left her feeling isolated
In 2008, Barbara Walters opened up to the Associated Press about her relationship with her older sister, per HuffPost. She explained that Jackie's mental condition affected her own childhood in that it ostracized her from other children. Walters told the AP, "It was a lonely, isolated childhood."
While Jackie's specific condition was never defined, ABC News speculated Jackie may have been autistic. Regardless of the specific diagnosis, the situation impressed upon Walters a need to take care of others and take control. "This is why I always felt that I had to work from an early age. I knew that my sister was going to be my responsibility. My nightmare was that my father was going to lose it all," she explained, per ABC News. Walters said that while she wasn't sure if she "resented" Jackie, she did resent that she could not have a normal life with her sister. "I couldn't have birthday parties because she didn't and I couldn't join the Girl Scouts because she didn't. My life was not normal to begin with because of my father and the whole show business."
Jackie died in 1985, per HuffPost, and it would take over two decades for Walters to publish her memoir revisiting her strained childhood.