Bette Midler says she’s sorry for offensive Caitlyn Jenner tweet
Bette Midler is being accused of homophobia.
The long-time ally and Divine Miss M posted the tweet yesterday about US President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin.
‘Trump and Putin are meeting in Finland next month,’ she wrote.
‘That’s a long way to travel for a blowjob, but hey — Putin’s got the money.’
Predictably, this caused a wave of hatred against her from Trump fans.
However, many people also questioned her use of homophobic rhetoric.
When two people opposed to gay rights are made out to be gay themselves, it brings the onus back onto the LGBTI community.
Making a joke at the expense of gay sex also suggests you see it as something outrageous or deviant. Others say if you use gay sex as a tool to insult another, it suggests the person doesn’t think of queer people as equal.
Twitter responded:
‘Homophobic insults are OK? Hypocrisy and bigotry. So we know how you really feel,’ one said.
‘I detest Trump, but this is unfunny and homophobic,’ another said.
‘Shame on you for using your platform to enable hatred and bigotry for nothing but scoring a few cheap political points.
This is not a useful way to fight fascism.’
Another said: ‘It’s not OK to be homophobic or transphobic just because the target is a really bad person who does a lot of harm to the LGBT population.’
Even homophobes pointed out that it could have been seen as homophobic.
‘
Others defended Midler, suggesting it was not homophobic at all.
Bette Midler has previously apologized for tweeting transphobia
In 2016, Midler apologized after a transphobic tweet about Caitlyn Jenner.
She posted: ‘Now that I Am Cait has been cancelled, will she go back to being Bruce? Will Kris take him back? Do I smell a re-wedding?!’
After outrage, she deleted the tweet.
She claimed it was ‘an idle musing’.
‘I seem to have misread the temper of the times,’ the singer said.
Midler became recognized as a gay icon in the 1970s. She got her start in gay bathhouses, where she became close to gay piano accompanist Barry Manilow.
‘Despite the way things turned out [with the AIDS crisis], I’m still proud of those days [singing at gay bathhouses],’ she said in 1998.
‘I feel like I was at the forefront of the gay liberation movement, and I hope I did my part to help it move forward. So, I kind of wear the label of “Bathhouse Betty” with pride.’
