Gay Life
Bette Midler On The Cover Of Gay Life 1980
By Staff
June 25, 2026
This is GayLife, Volume 6, Number 7, with Bette Midler on the cover and a feature inside on page 16.
By 1980, Bette was not just famous with gay audiences. She had been built, loved, and understood there first. Before the movie-star machine fully claimed her, she was the Divine Miss M: bathhouse royalty, camp scholar, torch singer, dirty-joke professional, and patron saint of dramatic entrances.
This cover has the whole thing. Big hair. Big face. Big signature. A gay paper treating her like exactly what she was.
A star, yes. But also one of ours.
