The Barbara Walters Special

In the first of their five interviews together, Elizabeth, and husband John Warner, were interviewed for The Barbara Walters Special “in the spacious kitchen of their farmhouse.” The conversation was recorded in February 1977, days before Elizabeth’s 45th birthday and just over two months after the Warners were married.

“I really didn’t think I wanted to get married again,” Elizabeth admits, “[but] then I met John, and it seemed that our kind of love was not conducive to just carrying on a long affair. It turned into the kind of love that spells marriage.”

Walters asked John what he believes to be Elizabeth’s greatest virtue and fault. “Well, her greatest virtue is [that] she’s made me terribly happy,” he answered. As for her greatest fault? He teased that “she just burns up a lot of food now and then.” “I wish she’d take better care of herself, and I mean that quite sincerely,” he added. “I’ve told her many times I want her to last a long, long time.”

Elizabeth told Walters that she wasn’t worried about gaining weight. “No, it doesn’t [worry me], because I’m so happy, and I enjoy eating. I like to cook.” “You wouldn’t care if you got fat?” Walters pressed. “I am fat,” Elizabeth responded.

Walters next interviewed Elizabeth a decade later, in 1987. “I find the comparison between these two interviews startling,” the veteran journalist observed when they later re-aired in the 1990s on Barbara Walters: Interviews of a Lifetime.

“I didn't enjoy being fat,” Elizabeth admitted in 1987. “I hated it, and I hated all the fat jokes. I probably laughed as loud or louder than anyone, but they hurt. They hurt me a lot, and there was a kind of defiance, I think, that made me get even fatter. Like, it’s my business, it’s my body.”