Sherri Shepherd and Joy Behar Recall Hearing Barbara Walters Hooked Up With Richard Pryor

Sherri Shepherd says Joy Behar did not know how to keep their gossip at the table.

On Wednesday, Behar joined her former The View co-host on her daytime talk show, Sherri, where they spilled some hot tea about their co-star, Barbara Walters. During the conversation, Shepherd recalled how Walters scared her a little, and how Behar never let the late newswoman get in her head.

Shepherd then reflected on the moment that late comedian Paul Mooney told her about one of Walter’s alleged hookups. 

“I came in and I told you, ‘Paul Mooney said he caught Barbara with Richard Pryor, he walked in on them.’ And I said, ‘Don’t tell nobody,'” Shepherd recalled. 

As Behar giggled, Shepherd clarified that Mooney said that he walked in on the pair and looked through the door. 

Initially, Behar played coy, but she encouraged Shepherd to tell the rest of the story. 

“I didn’t tell her you told me,” Behar quipped. 

“The next day, Barbara walks in and you go, ‘So you schlepping Richard Pryor huh?'” Shepherd said in her best impression of Behar. “She turned around and she goes, ‘Who told you that?’ And I am sitting there like I didn’t just get this job. And Joy, you do that because you not scared of Barbara.” 

Shepherd nor Behar revealed if Walters confirmed or denied Mooney’s story, and Behar made a reveal about her late co-host. 

“Between you and me, Barbara liked a brother,” she quipped. “She was going out with a Black senator. It’s in her book.”

Both women recalled how fond Walters was of former Secretary of State Colin Powell. 

“Every time Colin Powell came on, Barbara was all the way over here,” Shepherd added.

Behar, Walters and Shepherd were all co-hosts together on The View from 2007 to 2013, when Behar was fired. In 2014, Shepherd left, and Walters retired. 

Behar returned to the program in 2015, where she has remained ever since.

Walters died in December 2022 at the age of 93. 

In January, ET spoke with Shepherd, who shared the relationship she built with the late television personality.

“What you saw on the show versus on-on-one with Barbara — completely different when I said on The View, whenever Barbara would say, ‘I want to have dinner with you, dear,’ I was like, ‘What did I do now?.’ We would go out to dinner, hold hands, laugh so much,” Shepherd recalled.

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