Barbara Walters Tells Jimmy Fallon She ‘Could Have Married Clint Eastwood’

Back in 1982, Barbara Walters conducted an interview with a very flirtatious Clint Eastwood, which resulted in Eastwood asking her out to dinner, but she turned him down.

Last night, Walters appeared on The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon, who inquired about the incident and showed a clip of the interview with Eastwood.

“I could have been Mrs. Clint Eastwood,” Walters remarked. She added, “This is a sad love story. I did this interview with Clint Eastwood something like 30 years ago. He was very flirtatious, and I was very taken (with him). He asked me if I wanted to have dinner … and I said, ‘No, I have to work.’ You know, I don’t mix business with pleasure.”

Walters recently received the opportunity to meet with Eastwood again at the premiere of the director’s new film Jersey Boys. Considering they are both now divorced, Walters felt this was another chance for them to connect. She had a friend arrange for her to sit next to him inside the theater.

“I thought, ‘Maybe! Maybe it’s not too late!’ I’m not kidding. I really did,” she said. “I got the right outfit, the false eyelashes, the whole thing.”

However, it didn’t work out. “He was…polite,” she stated. “He was courteous. What’s that expression? He was just not into me…I’m still crying about it.”

See her interview with Jimmy Fallon below, as well as her 1982 interview with Clint Eastwood.