Barbara Walters died on December 30, 2022, in New York City at age 93.
Barbara Walters died on December 30, 2022, in New York City at the age of 93. Her death was reported by ABC News and confirmed by her longtime representative, prompting an outpouring of tributes from journalists, politicians, celebrities, and public figures around the world who recognized her as one of the most consequential figures in the history of American broadcast journalism.
By the time of her death, Walters had long since retired from active broadcasting, having stepped away from her final regular role as co-host and creator of The View in 2014, and having given her last major televised interview years earlier. Nonetheless, her influence remained deeply felt across the television news landscape, with virtually every major female anchor and interviewer of the subsequent decades acknowledging a debt to the barriers she broke.
Tributes highlighted not only her decades of historic firsts — as co-host of Today, co-anchor of the ABC Evening News, and creator of The View — but also her singular skill as an interviewer who secured conversations with nearly every U.S. president and First Lady from Richard Nixon onward, as well as countless world leaders, dictators, and celebrities. Her death marked the end of an era in American journalism and cemented her legacy as a pioneering trailblazer who fundamentally transformed the role of women in the newsroom and on camera.