‘Bette’ and not charging Lindsay Lohan were mistakes, says Bette Midler

Venerable actor Bette Midler says her partially autobiographical 2000 sitcom “Bette” represented a series of mistakes.

One of the mistakes was her decision not to sue Lindsay Lohan, who appeared as her daughter in the pilot episode but did not continue in the next 16 episodes that aired on CBS in the US.

Midler expressed her regret on “Fail Better,” a podcast hosted by fellow star David Duchovny. ”Bette.’ A big, big mistake. I think for several reasons,” Midler said.

She suggested that Lohan’s early departure from ‘Bette’ may have contributed to its failure. “Lindsay Lohan was cast as my daughter in the pilot. 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, what do you do now?

At the time, Lohan had recently found success in “Parent Trap.” She went on to star in ‘Freaky Friday’ and ‘Mean Girls’.

Midler, who was executive producer of “Bette,” also pointed the finger at himself.

“I didn’t realize what the pace was, and I didn’t understand what the hierarchy was, and no one bothered to tell me,” she said. “Well, I was immediately pulled over and I didn’t know what to do about it… I didn’t know that I could have taken charge, that I could have asserted, because I think I was so afraid of being branded as a grandstander.”

She added: “It was a part of the media that I simply didn’t understand,” Midler continued. “I watched it. I appreciated it. I liked it, but I didn’t know what it meant to make [a TV series.] I had done theatrical live events, I had done movies, I had done several television shows, I had been on talk shows, but I had never done a sitcom.