A series of disatrious events took place around the filming of Bette Midler's planned 2000s sitcom, Bette, one of them being the departure of Lindsay Lohan.
The actress, 78, was a guest on David Duchovny's newly launched Lemonada Media podcast Fail Better, which debuted on Tuesday (May 7). She shared her regrets about the show's pilot and her decision to not file a lawsuit following Lohan's exit from the show, which eventually led to the abrupt end of Bette.
“I did a television show, Bette. Does it get any more generic than that?” Midler told Duchovny around the 26:30 mark of the episode. "A big, big, big mistake."
Midler admitted that the show was made with the "wrong motivation" and that she didn't fully understand the media environment, but claims that she "was kicked to the curb immediately."
"And I didn't know what to do about it. I mean, it was...All the signs were there," she continued. "But because I was such a so green, I didn't understand what my choice, what my options were, what choices I could have made to improve my situation. I didn't know that I could have taken charge that I could have asserted my...because I think because I was so terrified of being branded, you know, a grandstander again."
The singer said she thought the show would be "entertaining" and based on "everyday life." Lohan was cast as her daughter in the pilot, but exited as her career began taking off around the same time.
"Well, after the pilot, Lindsay Lohan decided she didn't want to do it, or she had other fish to fry," Midler recalled. "So Lindsay Lohan left the building and I said, 'Well, now what do you do? And the studio didn't help me."
She added, "It was very chaotic. It was extremely chaotic."
Midler also shared her regrets for not suing after Lohan's exit. After feeling unheard by CBS executives on the project, she was fired.
"And 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."
Ironically, Lohan shared a promotional image from the show–which went unaired–last month.
"Had such a blast filming with the incredible @bettemidler 💕 #tbt," she captioned the post.
