Katie Couric Reveals Her Bitter War With Diane Sawyer – ‘I Love Getting Under Her Skin’

In her bombshell new memoir “Going There”, Katie Couric opens up about her bitter feud with Diane Sawyer, revealing that she reportedly bothered her fellow morning show host so much while on ‘Today” that competing “Good Morning America” host Sawyer once said “that woman must be stopped.”

Of course, Couric didn’t stop at dishing on their morning show rivalry. She even went so far as to bash one of Sawyer’s most (in)famous celebrity interviews.

Katie Couric And Diane Sawyer’s Morning Show ‘Booking Wars’

Daily Mail reported that Couric said that she “‘loved that she was getting under Diane’s skin’ during the ‘Booking Wars'” of the late 90s between their two shows.

At the time, Katie Couric hosted the “Today” show, while Diane Sawyer was on “Good Morning America.”

After one Sawyer managed to get one juicy exclusive interview, Couric reportedly quipped, “I wonder who she had to blow to get that,” which was leaked to the tabloids.

Though Couric said this was a joke, she admitted that it didn’t appear that way when printed in the tabloids.

“I’m pretty sure I speak for Diane when I say neither of us ever resorted to actual fellatio to land an interview, but we both engaged in the metaphoric kind — flattering gatekeepers, family members, and whoever else stood in the way of a big get,” Couric wrote, according to The New York Post. 

Related: Katie Couric Defends Matt Lauer As A ‘Decent’ Man Despite Sexual Misconduct Scandal

Their Rivalry Continues 

Couric claimed that Sawyer was so desperate to win the war between them that her producers would cry on the phone to people if they didn’t agree to talk to her.

Couric explained in her memoir “Going There” that she was still a local reporter in Miami when Sawyer became famous, and that she was “envious” of the decade-older newswoman.

She said that she “scrutinized” Sawyer’s interviews on “60 Minutes” and “couldn’t get over how cool” she was. 

Couric wrote that the rivalry pitted the two of them against each other, with her being the “fun and feisty” one while Sawyer was “sleek and sophisticated.”

They were each “at the top of our games and both very competitive.”

Related: Chelsea Handler Reveals She Attended A Dinner Party At Jeffrey Epstein’s Home As Katie Couric’s Guest

Katie Couric Criticizes Diane Sawyer’s Whitney Houston Interview In Memoir

While they weren’t mortal enemies, Couric admitted that “we definitely kept tabs on each other.”

At another point in the book, Katie Couric slammed Diane Sawyer for her infamous interview with Whitney Houston, calling it “exploitative.”

“There was a very fine line between a revealing interview and the exploitation of troubled, often traumatized people in service of tawdry tidbits and sensational sound bites (e.g., Diane bearing down on an agitated Whitney Houston about eating disorders and drug use, which yielded the memorable comeback ‘crack is whack’),” she wrote. 

There’s no word at this time on the status of Couric and Sawyer’s relationship today, but judging by these excerpts, there’s no love lost between them.