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David Letterman paid Barbara Walters a visit on The View earlier this week, and on Wednesday she returned the favor by being a guest on the Late Show.
PHOTOS: A New ‘View’: 15 Possible Panelists to Fill the Empty Seats
After 53 years in television, the longtime host and news anchor will make her final appearance on The View in two days, and with Letterman having announced his own impending retirement in April, the pair shared their mutual feelings of regret.
“On Friday, she will retire from television, which I know is a load of crap,” said Letterman, describing his guest as a “pioneer” in her field.
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“Your own network [ABC] is doing a two-hour special about your life in journalism and career on TV. I doubt that CBS would do the same for me,” Letterman lamented, before Walters begged him to stay on the talk show that has been his home for 20 years.
“I think they might, mine is very personal. You are retiring — I don’t want you to retire, can’t you stay?” she asked.
“No, that ship has sailed. They’ve got plans. They’ve repainted and they’ve measured,” he joked, about the arrival of replacement host, Stephen Colbert.
“I feel the same way,” revealed Walters, 84. “I said, ‘Yes, I’m ready to go’ but I’m not ready. Let’s walk into the sunset together.”
“I think we just made a suicide pact!” responded Letterman.
The conversation then took a serious turn when Walters talked about her planned sit-down with shamed Clippers owner Donald Sterling.
“Donald said he would do an interview, then he wouldn’t, then he wasn’t sure,” she explained, adding that as for Shelly Sterling claiming he had dementia: “I felt talking to him that he was confused. This was talking to him privately. I think the source might be … I think there is some confusion,” she added, saying she wasn’t comfortable making a medical evaluation.
Walters did do an interview with girlfriend V. Stiviano, “She said she helped him make decisions on what buildings to buy. He called her his ‘silly rabbit’ and she said they were ‘good friends’ — have you ever heard that before?”
STORY: Barbara Walters: ‘I Didn’t Try to Interview Donald Sterling’
They then flipped to a past notorious sex scandal.
“I know you are not retiring, and I know we will see you here twice a year — like Monica Lewinsky resurfaced,” said Letterman.
Walters won the first interview with Lewinsky in 1999 — which scored a record 74 million viewers — after news of her relationship with President Bill Clinton hit the headlines. “I like Monica, I feel like she never had the chance to move on. She is stuck. She is an intelligent and a nice person.
“I think it would be great if she was on The View, I wouldn’t expect it tomorrow,” she revealed.
As for how she will be remembered from her illustrious career that included being the first female TV news anchor — “it was just after the Civil War” — Walters said: “If I have to think of my legacy, it is that there are so many women in news now.”
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