Tonight’s Barbara Walters Academy Awards special on ABC marks the end of a 29-year tradition

They started with Loretta Lynn and Ringo Starr 29 years ago and its ending tonight with Sandra Bullock and Mo’Nique.

In between there’s been Hugh Jackman, Tom Cruise, Cher, Oprah Winfrey, Lauren Bacall, Bette Davis and on and on and on.

After nearly three decades of being an Oscar night tradition, Barbara Walters is calling it quits after this year’s special. She’s 80 and is feeling very “been there, done that” about it all.

“When I started doing the Oscar night interviews, it was something different, now everyone is doing celebrity interviews,” she said recently.

On tonight’s special, Barbara will revisit the old interviews so that should be a lot of fun. Among those will be her chat with Ricky Martin during which she asked the singer if he was gay – something she now regrets: “In 2000, I pushed Ricky Martin very hard to admit if he was gay or not, and the way he refused to do it made everyone decide that he was. A lot of people say that destroyed his career, and when I think back on it now I feel it was an inappropriate question.”