Bette Midler’s Regrets

Bette Midler has some regrets concerning her 2000 sitcom Bette, calling it a series of mistakes. During an episode of the Fail Better podcast with David Duchovny, she admitted that not suing Lindsay Lohan was one of her errors. “Lindsay Lohan was cast as my daughter in the pilot,” she said. “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?”

But Midler, who was also an executive producer on the series, also blamed herself, admitting that she didn’t understand the pace and hierarchy of the TV industry and felt unable to take charge. “It was a part of the media I simply did not understand,” she said. “I watched it. I appreciated it. it, I enjoyed it, but I didn’t know what it meant to make [a TV series.]”