Barbara Walters’ Daughter Jacqueline Dena Guber Today

On what would have been Barbara Walters’ 96th birthday, fans are reflecting not only on her trailblazing journalism career but also her life as a mother to Jacqueline Dena Guber, her only child. Walters, who died in December 2022, welcomed Jacqueline through adoption in 1968 with then-husband Lee Guber.

Walters later explained that she had endured three miscarriages before turning to adoption. In her 2014 retirement special, “Barbara Walters: Her Story,” she recalled how the adoption came about unexpectedly. “We had dinner one night with a couple we rarely saw. The woman said that she had a little girl, and they wanted to adopt a boy; they didn’t want the girl. And we said, ‘We’ll take the girl!’ ” Walters said.

Though she chose to keep the adoption private for many years, Walters often described Jacqueline as “born in my heart. Maybe not in my uterus, but in my heart.”

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A Complicated Balance Between Career and Motherhood

Walters’ career took off soon after Jacqueline’s arrival, with her historic role as the first female co-anchor of a network nightly news program alongside Harry Reasoner. Balancing that demanding career with motherhood was not always easy.

Longtime friend and former NBC correspondent Cynthia McFadden told People in June 2025 that Walters often expressed regret about her family life. “She’d tell everyone, ‘I so admire your relationship with your children,’ ” McFadden shared. “She was very regretful about her family life. It was something she felt like she couldn’t fix.”

Walters herself admitted in a resurfaced interview that, during that era, bringing a child to work “would be as if I had brought a dog who was not housebroken.” Still, she insisted that her greatest hope was to be remembered by Jacqueline as “a good and loving mother.”

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Barbara Walter’s Daughter, Jacqueline Dena Guber’s Life Outside the Spotlight

Though she once attended an intervention school in Idaho, where she credited her mother’s support, Jacqueline has mostly lived her life away from the cameras. In a 2002 NBC interview, she said of her mother: “[My mother] used to say that some mothers have babies from their tummies, and some have it from their heart. And you came from my heart.”

In 2008, Jacqueline reflected in a joint Glamour interview that if Walters were not her mother, she “would still want to be her friend.” Walters herself acknowledged in 2014 that her daughter simply never wanted celebrity status. “She may be the only one in the world who doesn’t like to be a celebrity,” she quipped.

Since Walters’ death, Jacqueline has continued to keep her life private.

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