Bette Midler To Stop Touring To Save The Planet
(There’s A Joke In There Somewhere…Just Wait)

Sky News
Matt Smith, Entertainment correspondent
Singer Bette Midler has told Sky News she is quitting touring – to help save the planet.
Bette Midler in Las Vegas

Bette Midler is moving to Las Vegas

The 62-year-old says she feels that the fleet of 14 lorries she uses to ship her show from city to city causes too much pollution.

So instead she’s decided to pitch up in Las Vegas and do a $13m residency instead.

“Over the years, the number of trucks that I have behind me has grown exponentially and I don’t really like that, I don’t like wasting the gas,” she told me on a promotional trip to London.

“Fourteen trucks, that’s a lot of gas. So I decided I’d stay put for a while,” she added.

Surely moving equipment in trucks is unavoidable for a touring show, I ask her?

“I can avoid it,” she says, shaking her head, and going on to provide an impressive list of her green credentials that would put most celebrities to shame.

“I don’t drive much, I have a Smart car, I have a hybrid, I drive a [Toyota] Prius,” she says.

I recycle, I compost, I do all the things you’re supposed to do. I’m wearing clothes from 50 years ago, I’m doing the right thing.

And it’s not just the environment that the singer has got strong views on.

Backing Democrat Barack Obama for the White House, she’s suspicious of the competition, namely Republican hockey mum Sarah Palin.

“I’m a little nervous about her politics and I’m a little nervous about her ideology. After eight years of a strictly ideological administration, I don’t really want to be subject to that anymore.

“It’s been eight years of people feeling that they’re on a chain, it’s been a terrible, terrible time.”

Surely she admires her, I ask, being a fellow feisty woman?

“She’s a communications major, and they typically know how to present a story to the public.

“They know how to read a teleprompter, they know how to give a good speech, and I think she’s given a good speech but honesty I find her politics a little nervous making.”

So if politics, climate change and $13m worth of feathers are your thing, Bette Midler’s pitched up in Vegas for the foreseeable and she’s waiting for you to arrive.

Just make sure you turn up in a eco-friendly way.

Bette Midler stars in “The Showgirl Must Go On” at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas for the next two years