Bette Midler admits her CBS show, “Bette,” was a “big mistake” — and so was not suing her co-star Lindsay Lohan for leaving it early.
During an appearance on David Duchovny’s “Fail Better” podcast Tuesday, Midler reflected on her short-lived stint as a sitcom star, which she candidly confessed ended up being a “big flop.”
“I did a television show, ‘Bette.’ Does it get any more generic than that?” the “Hocus Pocus” star, 78, joked. “A big, big, big mistake.”
Despite her name being on the project, Midler said she was “kicked to the curb” and not allowed to “take charge” of the series, which was canceled after just one season.
However, the “First Wives Club” star said she believes “it would have worked” had it not been for a few “astonishing” factors — like Lohan’s departure after the pilot episode.
“Lindsay Lohan was cast as my daughter,” she explained. “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, noting that it “was extremely chaotic.”
When Duchovny pointed out that Lohan was under contract and should not have been “allowed to do that,” Midler shared that she regrets not taking the then-14-year-old to court over the matter.
“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,” she 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.”
Midler then acknowledged there were “several reasons” the show failed, saying it was made with “the wrong motivation” and that she “did not understand” the media landscape at the time.
“I had made theatrical live events. I had made films. I had made variety television shows. I had been on talk shows. But I had never done a situation comedy,” she explained. “I didn’t realize what the pace was. And I didn’t understand what the hierarchy was. And no one bothered to tell me.”
The 2000 sitcom ended up being pulled midway through the season, going off the air before all the episodes even aired.
When Midler’s lawyer called to tell her the grim news, it was like a sigh of relief.
“I said, ‘Oh, isn’t that fantastic?’” she recalled. “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.”
Midler’s podcast interview notably premiered Tuesday, just five days after Lohan, 37, showed love to her former co-star on Instagram by posting a promo photo from the show.
“Had such a blast filming with the incredible @bettemidler 💕 #tbt,” she captioned the post.
