This wouldn’t be the first time Oprah Winfrey gave Barbara Walters her flowers for being a pioneer in television, opening doors for all the women hosts to follow.
Talk show host and television producer Oprah Winfrey shared a warm tribute to the late broadcast journalist Barbara Walters, following the television personality’s passing last week.
According to People, shortly after Walters passed on December 30, Winfrey posted a photo to her Instagram, where the two media moguls appeared sitting next each other, full of smiles.
“Without Barbara Walters there wouldn’t have been me — nor any other woman you see on evening, morning, and daily news,” Winfrey wrote in the caption. “She was indeed a Trailblazer. I did my very first television audition with her in mind the whole time.”
“Grateful that she was such a powerful and gracious role model,” she continued.
“Grateful to have known her. Grateful to have followed in her Light,” Winfrey’s tribute concluded.
Walters retired from The View in 2014, following 17 years of hosting the daytime talkshow that she created back in 1997. Winfrey surprised her television muse, appearing as a guest co-host during the send-off episode.
“I had to be here for your last show, to celebrate you, because of what you have meant to me,” Winfrey told Walters.
She proceeded to tell Walters how much she meant to her as a pioneer in the industry, thanking her for breaking down barriers and paving the way.
“When I auditioned for my first television job, I walked in not knowing what to do so I pretended to be Barbara Walters,” Winfrey said.
“I pretended to be her. I sat like Barbara. I crossed my legs like Barbara. I tried to talk like Barbara. I had Barbara in my head for about a year until one night I mispronounced Canada and called it Ca-nada. And that is not what Barbara Walters would do. And it was the first time I had a breakthrough to be myself, but you paved the road for that to happen for me,” Winfrey recalled.