Jane Pauley Recalls the Compliment She Received from Barbara Walters That Left Her ‘Frozen’ (Exclusive)

Gillian TellingTue, November 3, 2026 at 1:00 PM UTC

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Jane Pauley and Barbara Walters in the 1980sCredit: Judie Burstein/Globe Photos/ZUMAPRESS.com -

Jane Pauley recently celebrated her 10th anniversary on CBS Sunday Morning

To mark the occasion, she spoke with PEOPLE about her career, including how she succeeded Barbara Walters on Today in 1976

Pauley also said Walters once paid her a compliment that left her “frozen”

Jane Pauley has spent more than five decades breaking barriers in television, but one of the most meaningful compliments she received about her career came from the woman who helped pave the way before her: Barbara Walters.

Pauley, who turned 74 on Oct. 31, and recently celebrated her 10th anniversary on CBS Sunday Morning, recalls taking over for Walters at the Today show in 1976, when she was just 25.

“Her picture was right outside my office, which was more intimidating than I can tell you,” Pauley tells PEOPLE. “Because it had been her office. Unlike all those other women who competed with Barbara — and generally unsuccessfully — they didn’t have to go back to work after their shows were over and pick up Barbara Walters’ phone!”

However, Pauley says she and Walters were friendly, and Walters made sure to let Pauley know she thought she was doing a good job in the role.

Later, when Walters wanted to discuss her fraught relationship with her adopted daughter on national TV, she turned to Pauley.

Jane Pauley and Barbara Walters in 1987Credit: Alan Singer/NBC/NBC NewsWire/Getty

“She brought the interview to me, which was such a compliment,” Pauley says.

She also recalls something Walters told her that stuck with her.

“She said, ‘You know, Jane, you were the only one of us who really had it all,” says Pauley, who is the mother of three children and now four grandchildren. Later in her life, Walters had famously lamented the fact that she felt she had to choose work over family, and had strained relations with her daughter.

“And I was kind of frozen like, ‘No, I didn’t,’” Pauley says. “No, nobody had it all.”

Jane Pauley on the ‘Today’ show in the 1970sCredit: Raimondo Borea/Gartenberg Media Enterprises/Getty

Still, Pauley understood what Walters meant — and why the words carried so much weight coming from the pioneering broadcaster.

“I knew what she meant by that,” Pauley says. “I don’t know if I was the only one [of the news female news anchor] who ‘had it all,’ but it was legitimizing when Barbara said that to me.”

“I needed to hear that,” she adds.

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But Pauley was, in fact, responsible for changing the way pregnancy and motherhood in the workplace were viewed. She remained a news anchor while pregnant with her twins in the 1980s, and she said it was significant.

Barbara Walters, star of the National Broadcasting Company’s “Today” show in the early 70s.Credit: Bettmann

“Like all the other women in the audience who were getting dressed for work or watching while they were sending the kids off to school or whatever they were doing, watching this transformation of working women becoming working mothers right before their eyes was significant,” she says, adding that Joan Lunden was also pregnant on TV around the same time.

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“Working women were one story, and then working mothers became another story. It made an impact.”

It had been very different for Walters. Pauley recalls that when Walters adopted her daughter, she didn’t tell her colleagues anything.

“When she adopted the baby girl and left work, she took a day off from work on the Today show. She didn’t tell anybody where she was going. When she came back, she didn’t tell anybody where she had been,” Pauley says. “There were no pictures of this new baby. A total secret.”

She adds, “We sort of went opposite ends of that choice,” she says.

Neither approach, however, eliminated the uncertainty and guilt that came with balancing work and family.

“Both of us, I’m sure, felt completely conflicted about all of our choices because we all did,” Pauley says.

As for the idea of “having it all,” Pauley says the struggle to balance career and family is hardly unique to women with high-profile careers, but something everyone relates to.

“The angst you suffer about your children and your choices? Everybody’s suffering the same angst.”

on People

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Source: “AOL Entertainment”