It's Off: Barbara Won't Spar with Star

Barbara Walters is declining to publicly engage with Star Jones after things heated up this week between the two.

On Friday, Walters said that, rather than spar publicly, as many predicted, she'd rather hang on to her good memories of their days together on The View. Walters told AP Radio, "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. I don't want to add to her difficulties." Oops, too late!

Earlier this week, during an appearance on Oprah, Walters revealed that she and fellow View hosts lied for Jones about her significant weight loss in 2002-03. Jones then shot back, saying, "It is a sad day when an icon like Barbara Walters...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."

Walters defended her revelations about her affair, however, asserting that she has good intentions: "I put it in to show in great part how race relations have changed," she said. "This was 30 years ago, it was an African-American prominent man. And it would've destroyed his career, and mine. Today it would have almost no impact."

Which woman has the more valid View? Is Walters taking the high road, or folding in a fracas that she instigated? - Anna Dimond

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" Feature Q&A: Barbara Walters Gets Personal in Her Audition
" Watch Video: Barbara Walters Tells Barack He's "Very Sexy"