Bette Midler has apologized for a tweet that sparked uproar on the social media platform on Friday. Midler reacted angrily to the FBI’s weeklong investigation into sexual harassment allegations against Brett Kavanaugh.
Midler was upset at the FBI’s failure to conduct a “complete investigation” into sexual harassment allegations against Kavanaugh, who is President Trump’s nominee to the U.S. Supreme Court.
The FBI found nothing to corroborate the allegations made by several women against Kavanaugh.
In a tweet on Thursday evening, the 72-year-old icon wrote: “Women are the n-word of the world”. Midler said she was quoting Yoko Ono who uttered the same words in a song with her late husband John Lennon in 1972.
Midler explained her thought process in her apology.
“The too brief investigation of allegations against Kavanaugh infuriated me. Angrily I tweeted w/o thinking my choice of words would be enraging to black women who doubly suffer, both by being women and by being black. I am an ally and stand with you; always have. And I apologize.”
But Black Twitter was furious that Midler used a quote that was stolen from famed Black author Zora Neal Hurston, who died in 1960.
“So Bette Midler quoted Yoko who stole the line from Zora Neale Hurston who shed light on how the Black woman is the mule of the world in her novel. But Yoko ignored that part. And so did Bette. So f–k both of them,” tweeted @nubiansweet.
And Twitter user @ShaniceDee wrote: “So first Bette Midler pretends black women don’t exist, and then tries to tell us to get out our feelings and that it’s not about race when she’s literally the one who brought race up??? I guess she doesn’t want us to enjoy Hocus Pocus this year…”
Photo by Rob Kim/Getty Images
