Journalist, writer, and media personality Barbara Walters revealed she had an affair with U.S. Sen. Edward Brooke in the 1970s. She confessed the secret during an interview with Oprah Winfrey scheduled to air on Tuesday.

Edward Brooke was the first African-American to be popularly elected to the Senate. Both he and Walters knew that public knowledge of their romance could have ruined their careers. At the time, Walters was co-hosting NBC’s “Today” show. It appears that their relationship ended before he lost his bid for a third term in 1978.

When Oprah Winfrey asked her if she was in love, Walters said “I was certainly — I don't know — I was certainly infatuated…I was certainly involved.”

“He was exciting. He was brilliant. It was exciting times in Washington,” she added, quoted by the Associated Press.

Walters also spoke about her problems with her sister, who was mentally retarded. Jackie Walters died in 1985 of ovarian cancer. “When I think of her, because she was beautiful and loving and all of that, it makes me cry,” Barbara Walters declared.

One of the creators and co-executive producers of the often controversial show “The View,” Barbara Walters earned fame by interviewing prominent personalities, such as Monica Lewinsky, in front of a record of 74 million viewers, Boris Yeltsin, Jiang Zemin, Margaret Thatcher, Fidel Castro, Indira Gandhi, Václav Havel, Muammar al-Gaddafi, the Shah of Iran Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, King Hussein of Jordan, King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia, and Hugo Chavez.