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BARBARA WALTERS VS. STAR JONES – ROUND 3: Barbara says she's not trying to go back and forth in the press with former 'View' co-host.
*Barbara Walters' new memoir "Audition" and its section on Star Jones has stirred up another hornets nest of drama that the veteran journalist hopes to squash once and for all.
Walters said she will not engage in a debate with Jones, who accused her of revealing a past affair with an African American senator just to sell books. Walters said despite the public rift, she prefers to remember the good times the former co-hosts shared on "The View."
"Star is going through a very difficult time right now, and I'm going to have very happy memories of how wonderful she was on the program," Walters told AP Radio on Friday. "I don't want to add to her difficulties."
Jones, who is currently divorcing her husband of four years, Al Reynolds, fired back at Walters after the television news vet wrote in "Audition" that the women of "The View" were forced to cover up Jones' gastric bypass surgery as she swiftly lost weight ahead of her wedding. Jones maintained at the time that she was eating less and doing Pilates.
"We lied for Star," Walters told AP Radio. "She was our colleague. She didn't want to discuss it, we didn't force her to. Was that a mistake? I don't know. ... It was Star's decision."
Earlier this week, Jones criticized her former boss for writing about her, and for including revelations of an affair with former U.S. Senator Edward Brooke in the 1970s.
"It is a sad day when an icon like Barbara Walters, in the sunset of her life, is reduced to publicly branding herself as an adulterer, humiliating an innocent family with accounts of her illicit affair and speaking negatively against me all for the sake of selling a book. It speaks to her true character," Jones told Us Weekly magazine.
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