Star Jones lashes out at Barbara Walters

Thu, May 8, 2008    to del.icio.us

NEW YORK (AP) — Nearly two years after Star Jones left "The View" on rocky terms, the 46-year-old TV personality has criticized former boss Barbara Walters for writing about her.

In Walters' new memoir, "Audition," she discusses how Jones wouldn't acknowledge her gastric bypass surgery on the air. She also writes about Jones' lavish wedding, which wound up alienating viewers as Jones accepted gifts in return for promotion.

"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.

Jones' publicist, Brad Zeifman, said Jones wouldn't comment further.

Walters reveals in the book that she had a past affair with married U.S. Sen. Edward Brooke that lasted several years in the 1970s.

The details about Jones are less juicy, but shed light on what happened behind the scenes on "The View" when Jones refused to publicly acknowledge the gastric bypass surgery she had in 2003.