Barbara Walters Edward Brooke Affair

Guide Note

During an interview with Oprah Winfrey on May 1, 2008, television personality Barbara Walters confided that she had been involved in a sexual affair with former Massachusetts senator Edward Brooke in the 1970s. Walters was divulging information from her memoir Audition, which details her public and private life.

Fast Facts

1. Affair was hidden for more than 30 years
2. Continued the affair for six years
3. Brooke was married at the time of the affair
4. Affair ended to protect their careers

Edward Brooke was the first African-American elected by popular vote to the U.S. Senate. He took office in 1966 and remained the sole African American elected to the Senate until 1993. During Brooke's marrige to his war bride Remigia Ferrari-Scacco, they had two daughters and a son. A bitter contentious divorce was said to be partly responsible for Brooke's third Senate term loss.

They couple initially met in 1973 at a restaurant in New York City and later in Washington D.C., where the Senator arranged for them to dine together in the Senate Dining Room. The physical side of the relationship took place on Martha's Vineyard, at Brooke's Watergate apartment and at the home of friends in Virginia.

"We never ran out of things to talk about, and of course there was the fascination of our having to be so secretive. But I was beginning to resent the sneaking around, and I slowly began asking myself if we could ever be married."—Barbara Walters