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\u201cIf someone had built to order the woman most likely to set off Barbara Walters, she would have looked a lot like Diane Sawyer,\u201d Susan Page<\/strong> wrote in her 2024 book<\/a> The Rulebreaker: The Life and Times of Barbara Walters.<\/em> \u201cIf Diane was cool and aloof, Barbara was hot, intense, in your face. Diane glided. Barbara charged.\u201d<\/p>\n In the documentary, former 20\/20<\/em> executive producer Victor Neufeld<\/strong> confirms that Walters was \u201cunhappy\u201d when Sawyer arrived on the scene, given their similar purviews. \u201cBarbara watched Diane warily, because she was really in the same altitude as Barbara,\u201d 20\/20<\/em> producer Martin Clancy<\/strong> says in the film. \u201cOther correspondents were not a threat. I think Barbara secretly resented Diane for being younger.\u201d<\/p>\n Also a sore spot for Walters? Sawyer\u2019s looks. \u201cShe was certainly dogged by Diane\u2019s very existence. She often said Diane was the perfect woman,\u201d says NBC\u2019s Cynthia McFadden<\/strong> in the film. \u201cShe used the word \u2018a blonde goddess.\u2019 This was an ideal woman, and Barbara couldn\u2019t compete with that. She could work harder. She could know more people. But she couldn\u2019t compete with that.\u201d<\/p>\n Sawyer, who does not appear in the documentary, has admitted to some discord between her and Walters. \u201cWhen I arrived, I\u2019m sure it was confusing to her because interviews had been her sole terrain,\u201d Sawyer told Page for her book. \u201cI was always working on some long-form, delving into violence in schools or something that had really intrigued me. So I never felt that shows I was on, or my career, depended on interviews solely, but I understood what they meant to her\u2026. When I started doing some interviews, I think it must have thrown her.\u201d<\/p>\n The doc delves into one particularly tense showdown, when Walters and Sawyer both wanted to interview Katharine Hepburn. Sawyer got the story, despite Walters\u2019s attempts to sway the Oscar winner to her side. \u201cIf I showed up on Mars, they would have a note there with the Barbara Walters stationary that is just requesting an interview with anybody who might happen to show,\u201d Sawyer jokes in footage shown in the documentary.<\/p>\n \u201cI know that nobody, maybe, will believe this,\u201d Sawyer told Page for her book, \u201cbut we spent a lot of time laughing and forging a real friendship, and that was true even when I first arrived\u2026. I could share anything with her, and I know she shared things with me, things that were very close to the bone.\u201d<\/p>\n Walters also denied ever having a full-on feud with Sawyer, saying via voiceover in the doc: \u201cI don\u2019t think Diane Sawyer and I had a feud. I think people know that we were after the same [interview] gets.\u201d And when she died in 2022, Sawyer paid tribute to her sometime rival in a statement<\/a>: \u201cBarbara was a trailblazer, a singular force who opened the door for every woman in television news.\u201d<\/p>\n Connie Chung<\/strong><\/p>\n