On December 30, 2022, at the age of 93, the well-known news anchor Barbara Walters died away. During her last years, the iconic television personality had been fighting dementia, and she was only sometimes spotted leaving her residence in New York City. She had a distinguished and fruitful career until deciding to call it quits in 2015.
The world was familiar with Walters because of the personal interviews she conducted, but her coworkers and family knew her best for her remarkable work ethic. She was very dedicated to her profession and never missed a day of attendance at the office. Because she wanted to devote her time and attention to her job, Walters has difficulty in sustaining long-term relationships with other people.
The journalist’s sister, Jacqueline Walters, was regarded by her as the one who instilled in her a tendency toward workaholism in addition to teaching her compassion and understanding. As a result of having to care for her mentally challenged sister at a young age, Walters developed a sense that she had a significant amount of responsibility right from the start. This sensation remained with me far into adulthood.
Thankfully, all of Walters’ labor did not go to waste. She was the first woman to ever co-anchor the nightly news, and because to her exceptional ability to conduct interviews, she was able to earn $1 million per year. Nevertheless, in spite of all of her achievements, Walters always felt guilty about the bond she neglected with her cherished adopted daughter, Jacqueline Dena Guber, who is also known as Jacqueline Danforth.
Why Did Walters First Hide Her Adopted Daughter?
In 1963, Walters tied the knot with Lee Guber, who was her second marriage. The couple had been together for almost a decade before being married, and during their whole marriage, they longed to have parents. But despite her best efforts, Walters was never able to achieve her goal of becoming pregnant, and when she finally did, the pregnancy ended in a terrible miscarriage. They had two more miscarriages before they made the decision to pursue adoption.
In 1968, while Walters and her husband were still married but had just started the process of dissolving their marriage, they became parents to Danforth. They hid the fact that their baby daughter was adopted at the time, but now she is their only child. It was disclosed by Walters that the reason for the secrecy was due to the fact that they did not want her biological mother to know that they had adopted her.
But Danforth’s upbringing was fraught with a variety of difficulties. She was raised by her mother after the divorce of her parents, and Walters has stated that she should have spent more time with her daughter during that period of time. In her adolescent years, Danforth sought relief from the stress brought on by her mother’s celebrity by turning to substance abuse. She made the remark that she had never “fit into” the life of her mother.
While Danforth’s mother had a great deal of success as a news anchor, her father earned a career as a performer on Broadway, working in a number of different places. Guber began his career by producing Broadway shows. Subsequently, he purchased other houses and transformed them into venues where he entertained various artists.
He was able to rack up a sizeable fortune by luring some of the most well-known figures in the entertainment industry to perform at his establishments. The likes of Sammy Davis Jr., Jack Benny, and Stevie Wonder were among the guests he welcomed. The fact that Danforth’s parents were both prominent persons in the public eye meant that he received little in the way of attentive parenting.
The emotional toll of having absent parents grew taxing, and Walters’ busy public life caused Danforth to feel abandoned and left out of things. She eventually began abusing substances as a means of coping with her circumstances, and she developed an addiction when she was a young adolescent.
How Danforth Managed to Struggle With Her Own Personal Issues While Also Trying to Cope With Her Famous Mother
Danforth’s life quickly started going in a fairly negative direction as a result of his developing drug use. She was successful in concealing her addiction, and as a result, Walters was unaware of what her daughter was going through. The fact that she was the adoptive daughter of a renowned lady was difficult for her, and she also struggled to find her place at the school she attended. Therefore, she made the decision to flee. It was her statement that:
“And the medicines dulled every other sensation that was present. However, it did not solve the problems that I was experiencing. They became larger and bigger. I felt farther and further removed from the world in which my mother lived. And here I was, thinking that running would be the answer to all of my issues.”
Danforth decided to go out on her own during the summer of 1984. She ran away from home and made the decision to put as much space as possible between her and the chaotic environment in which her mother worked as a journalist. She traveled a total of 800 miles throughout the Southwest via hitchhiking, which is an astounding distance for a young adolescent to cover.
After a month, the person who Danforth had been travelling with at the time sought for someone to contact while she was sleeping in order to keep her company. He discovered Walters’ phone number in her wallet and informed her that her daughter was with another person. At long last, Walters was presented with the opportunity to reclaim her daughter. However, instead of sending her back home, she enrolled her in a rehabilitation program that ultimately ended up saving her life.
In spite of Walters’ absence, Danforth was there for Mom right up to the very end. He was there by her side throughout her last moments.
When Danforth finally arrived at the rehabilitation facility, she understood the gravity of the perilous circumstance from which her mother had just rescued her. From that point on, Danforth made an attempt to abstain from drugs that were addictive, and Walters became aware of the degree of her daughter’s suffering at home during this time.
The news presenter became aware that she had been devoting a disproportionate amount of her time to her job rather than to her kid. After taking her retirement, the well-known journalist Barbara Walters confessed that she regretted not spending more time with her daughter Danforth when the latter was younger.
Fortunately, Walters was able to successfully turn her relationship around with her daughter in time, and the two of them began reconnecting once Danforth was released from the rehabilitation center. Before Walters took early retirement in 2015, she had already established a strong bond with her daughter. After she had finished her task, she gushed, saying:
“Oh, I love my daughter. To be aware that you are going to have the same kind of love for her that I do for her… I find it hilarious that [she] recently told me, “Mom, when you get Alzheimer’s, you may come down and live next to me.” This is the reason why I am laughing. That is seen as a really heartfelt complement on my part.”
In the last years of Walters’ life, she and Danforth had a connection that could only be described as very adorable. The two were over over heels in love with one another, and any problems they had had in the past did not matter anymore. Danforth ultimately tied the knot with Mark Danforth and went on to establish a home for troubled adolescent women. An acquaintance of the family said that Danforth was “there for her at the end.”