TV

Barbara Walters was caught hooking up with comedian Richard Pryor, claims Sherri Shepherd

Sherri Shepherd claims the late Barbara Walters was caught having sex with comedian Richard Pryor by Paul Mooney.

The allegation was made when the “Sherri” host reunited with Joy Behar during Wednesday’s episode of her eponymous talk show to discuss their years co-starring together on “The View.”

The two women, who were both panelists on the daytime series from 2007 to 2013, sat down for a discussion less than one year after the trailblazing journalist died.

“I’ve never told this before. I told Joy that I had run into Paul Mooney and he said that he caught Barbara Walters with Richard Pryor,” Shepherd recalled.

“I came back and I was like, ‘Joy guess what?'” she went on, noting that she urged Behar not to repeat the story.

Sherri Shepherd claimed the late Barbara Walters was caught hooking up with comedian Richard Pryor. ABC
She recalled the story on her talk show with guest Joy Behar. Sherri/Debmar-Mercury
The pair had a candid discussion about Walters. Sherri/Debmar-Mercury

Shepherd emphasized the fact that Mooney, who died in 2021, “walked in on” the pair hooking up.

“He [Mooney] looked through the door and … don’t act like you don’t remember,” she said to Behar while the studio audience laughed.

“The next day, Barbara walks in and [Behar] goes, ‘So you’re schlepping Richard Pryor huh?’ … Barbara turned around and goes, ‘Who told you that?’”

“Paul Mooney … said that he caught Barbara Walters with Richard Pryor,” Shepherd recalled. Michael Ochs Archives

Pryor, who died in 2005, was interviewed by Walters four times, including a memorable 1968 sit-down in which he admitted to lying about a prior suicide attempt.


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“The View” creator, who was married four times, “liked a brother,” according to Behar.

“She was going out with a black senator,” she said, referencing the affair Walters had with Sen. Edward Brooke from Massachusetts, which she discussed in her memoir.

Walters interviewed Pryor four times. Getty Images

Shepherd and Behar also recalled Walters cozying up to former Secretary of State Colin Powell whenever he made an appearance on “The View.”

The famed journalist, who created “The View” in 1997, died at her New York City home on Dec. 30, 2022. She was 93.

She said “I do” four times throughout her life — two of which were to Merv Adelson.

The trailblazing journalist was married four times to three different people. Bettmann Archive

She was married to Robert Henry Katz from 1955 to 1957, followed by Lee Guber from 1963 to 1976, and Adelson from 1981 to 1984 and again from 1986 to 1992.

“I don’t think that I was very good at marriage,” she explained in an ABC special about her life.

“It may be that my career was just too important. It may have been that I was a difficult person to be married to, and I just seem to be better alone. I’m not lonely, I’m alone.”