What insecure Barbara Walters was really like off-camera and how she convinced Oprah Winfrey not to have kids

Barbara Walters was the first million-dollar woman on TV.But behind the scenes, the legendary interviewer and “The View” founder was a difficult and calculating star who did not have “the strongest moral compass,” according to her book editor Peter Ethers.“She was obsessed with three things: She was obsessed with money, fame and power,” he reveals in a new documentary “Tell Me Everything,” streaming June 23 on Hulu.“A lot of the relationships she developed were career moves, and she was a pretty transactional person,” Ethers added of Walters, who passed away in 2022 at age 92.This included striking up a relationship with Donald Trump’s mentor, the notorious lawyer Roy Cohn, who helped get her father’s tax evasion charges dropped.Even though Cohn was gay, the pair considered getting married.“Roy Cohn was famous, so he was worthwhile to Barbara,” Post columnist Cindy Adams, one of Walters’ closest friends, says in the documentary.

“Barbara was famous so it was worthwhile for Roy.They were two people who loved PR.“Did they really do anything together? I don’t think so,” Adams says with a chuckle.The film unites colleagues and friends to speak about the woman who made it her business to talk to everyone from Taylor Swift to Fidel Castro, Richard Nixon to Monica Lewinsky — subjects who were not always happy with the turns Walters’s interviews could take.But her fame came at a price, as she sacrificed much of her personal life for her career.“I used to say to her all the time, ‘I wish you could enjoy your success as much as the rest of us.’ I don’t think she ever did,” former “Nightline” co-host Cynthia McFadden, a longtime friend of Walters, told The Post.“Like many people who rise to the top, Barbara really had two competing drives,” McFadden added.

“She was unbelievably self confident.She had nerves of steel — she could not have done what she did otherwise.

But she was also deeply insecure about what...