Bette Midler Calls 'Bette' Sitcom a 'Big Mistake,' Regrets Not Suing Lindsay Lohan for Leaving
Bette Midler is looking back on her early 2000s sitcom Bette.
The 78-year-old actress starred in and executive produced the one season CBS comedy, and in a recent podcast interview, she opened up about her regrets surround the series, including not suing a then 14-year-old Lindsay Lohan.
Keep reading to find out more…
“I did a television show, Bette. Does it get any more generic than that?” she joked on David Duchovny‘s Fail Better podcast. “A big, big, big mistake.”
While Bette says she was “kicked to the curb” and un-allowed to “take charge” of the series, she believes it “would have worked” if it weren’t for a few factors, like Lindsay‘s exit after the pilot episode.
Reportedly, at the time, Bette wanted the show to film in Los Angeles instead of New York City, where Lindsay lived. The teen actress did not want to commute to LA from NYC for the length of time the show’s commitment would require.
“Lindsay Lohan was cast as my daughter,” Bette shared. “Well, after the pilot, Lindsay Lohan decided she didn’t want to do it, or she had other fish to fry.
“So Lindsay Lohan left the building, and I said, ‘Well, now what do you do?’ And the studio didn’t help me,” she continued, adding it “was extremely chaotic.”
Bette then added that she regrets not taking legal action against Lindsay for leaving, who would have been under contract to appear in the series.
“If I had been in my right mind, or if I had known that my part of my duties were to stand up and say, ‘This absolutely will not do, I’m going to sue,’ then I would have done that,” the Hocus Pocus star said. “But I seem to have been cosseted in some way that I couldn’t get to the writer’s room. I couldn’t speak to the showrunner. I couldn’t make myself clear.”
She admits there were other factors of why the show failed and it ended up being pulled before all of the filmed episodes could air.
“I said, ‘Oh, isn’t that fantastic?’” Bette said about learning the show was canceled. “I mean, we were on the 18th episode out of 22, and I was so thrilled not to have to continue because I could not gather myself enough to make it work.”
Just last week, Lindsay actually posted a photo of her and Bette from the set of the show!
“Had such a blast filming with the incredible @bettemidler ???? #tbt,” she captioned the snap. Check it out HERE!
In case you missed it, Bette took to social media to pitch herself for a role on a popular comedy series…