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Video: Bette Midler – Friends – Parkinson 1979
By Boodles BonBon
Dec 23, 2025
From Boodles BonBon: Bette Midler’s “Friends” has long been a chosen-family/community anthem and is often cited as a gay anthem. That meaning is rooted in lived Pride history. Bette appeared at the Christopher Street Liberation Day rally in Washington Square Park (NYC, June 24, 1973) alongside activist Vito Russo. Amid the AIDS crisis, the song took on deeper resonance. Bette performed “In My Life / Friends” at AIDS Project Los Angeles’ Commitment to Life benefit in 1991, as a tribute to friends she’d lost. Decades later, she returned to it on a major Pride stage, performing “Friends” while headlining NYC WorldPride (2019) — reaffirming its place as a song about survival, memory, and the family we make. ?? This is my restored archive version — picture cleaned, edit refined, and audio carefully repaired to present the performance in its best possible light. — Source note: This performance comes from a BBC television re-broadcast via Parkinson: The Interviews, revisiting Bette Midler’s 1979 appearance on Parkinson. Included here for archival reference. #BetteMidler #Friends #ChosenFamily #GayAnthem #LGBTQ #Pride #WorldPride #ChristopherStreetLiberationDay If sharing, please link to this upload and keep the full edit intact with credit. Please don’t clip, re-upload, or recreate this edit.
Thank you very much for sharing my videos this last month , Mr D. And for all the other enjoyable posts this year (these Bette Midler Archive Concert Releases are my new obsession). Merry Christmas, and thank you once again. xB
I love what you’re doing and thank you for letting me share them! Hope you have a wonderful Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year! Much Love, Don