Mister D:This story is making the rounds today with many entertainment sites twisting some of Bette’s words around and taking them somewhat out of context. She didn’t call Ariana Grande a whore…she said young girls shouldn’t have to act like whores to get ahead. Trust your talent. Which is fair. Bette’s act was always bawdy, but I don’t really think she ever used sex to get ahead. Just my opinion.
StereoGum
Bette Midler: Ariana Grande Looks “Ridiculous,” But That’s None Of My Business
Nov 25th ’14 by James Rettig
Earlier this month, Bette Midler put out a covers album of all girl groups called It’s The Girls!, which includes songs from the Supremes, the Shangri-Las, and the Ronettes. The newest song on the album is TLC’s “Waterfalls,” and she thinks that the last great girl band was Destiny’s Child. In a new profile for The Telegraph, Midler shared her opinion on the amount of sex in pop music today, targeting one person in particular:
It’s terrible! It’s always surprising to see someone like Ariana Grande with that silly high voice, a very wholesome voice, slithering around on a couch looking so ridiculous. I mean, it’s silly beyond belief and I don’t know who’s telling her to do it. I wish they’d stop. But it’s not my business, I’m not her mother. Or her manager. Maybe they tell them that’s what you’ve got to do. Sex sells. Sex has always sold.
Midler then went on to wonder why sex is more prominent now than it was back in her day:
Well whatever strictures there were have fallen apart. And now it’s whatever you feel like doing you can do. I mean, apparently people really like to pretend they’re having sex. They really like to slap each other’s butts. I mean, don’t ask me. It’s beyond me. I’m too old. I don’t know what the end game is going to be. I don’t know where you go from all that sex in your twenties. I don’t know how you sustain it.
She then imparted some advice for women who want to get into show business today: “Trust your talent. You don’t have to make a whore out of yourself to get ahead. You really don’t.”
I was aghast when I saw the article on TMZ, and that it had made the front cover of AOL news. There seems to be a preponderance of news agencies twisting the words, trying to make them facts, and presenting them as something other than what was really said. Even AOL’s cover headline listed Bette as a “Legendary Actress” giving advice to Ariana. Although I also consider Bette a legendary actress, in this context, it would make more sense that a legendary singer is giving advice to another popular up-and-coming singer; not that it is coming from an actress to a singer. I almost don’t know which direction to go in, in terms of dignifying a response. I hope this is news that blows over in a nanosecond.
I was aghast when I saw the article on TMZ, and that it had made the front cover of AOL news. There seems to be a preponderance of news agencies twisting the words, trying to make them facts, and presenting them as something other than what was really said. Even AOL’s cover headline listed Bette as a “Legendary Actress” giving advice to Ariana. Although I also consider Bette a legendary actress, in this context, it would make more sense that a legendary singer is giving advice to another popular up-and-coming singer; not that it is coming from an actress to a singer. I almost don’t know which direction to go in, in terms of dignifying a response. I hope this is news that blows over in a nanosecond.
It will disappear amidst the Ferguson decision.