Midler Rented Her Winnie Costume After Disney Refused To Loan Her One

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Newsweek
Bette Midler Rented Hocus Pocus Costume After Studio Denied Loaning Her One
BY SHANNON POWER
9/13/22

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Mister D: Yes, it’s me again, and I just wanted to say that I knew Disney was cheap and petty, but U never knew they were miserly! Midler Rented Her Winnie Costume!

Bette Midler had to rent a Hocus Pocus costume online after the film studio refused to loan her one for an event.

Midler played Winnie Sanderson, one of three sisters who are evil witches in the 1993 cult classic film, alongside Sarah Jessica Parker (Sarah Sanderson) and Kathy Najimy (Mary Sanderson).

Ahead of the highly anticipated sequel due to air on Disney+ later this month, Midler revealed she had no idea how popular the film had become until she had to hire a Hocus Pocus costume. Bette Midler dressed as Winifred Sanderson from ‘Hocus Pocus’ at the Bette Midler’s Annual Hulaween Bash on October 28, 2016, in New York City. Midler had to rent the costume after the studio refused to loan her one from the set. 

The superstar was forced to pay for a Winnie Sanderson costume because Walt Disney Studios, the production company that made the original film, could not loan her one of the original costumes.

Midler revealed the movie only became a “runaway hit” after it aired on TV, and she tried for years to get a sequel made.

“We got no interest at all, and a few years after that, I remember I needed the costume, and I asked the studio to loan it to me, but they couldn’t,” she told EW.

“My friend suggested that I go online, so I looked, and I was shocked because I’d never seen so much Hocus Pocus merch.

“I bought the costume, and I came as Winnie here and there, for this benefit or that benefit, and I realized something was going on.”

Midler added she would call the studio at least once a year to push for a sequel but “it wasn’t until about three years ago that they advocated for it, and movement started.”

“It picked up when they decided they wanted it to be on a streamer. They never looked back until they got their movie,” she said.

One of the events Midler wore her iconic costume to was her own Halloween fundraising event for the New York Restoration Project,

Dubbed the Bette Midler’s Annual Hulaween Bash, the actress dressed as Winnie for the star-studded event held at the Waldorf-Astoria Grand Ballroom in New York City in 2016.

The original film saw the diabolical Sanderson sisters reawakened by a teenager in modern-day Salem after they were murdered in the infamous 17th-century witch trials.

That film ended with the group of local teenagers successfully trapping them in a kiln and burning them alive.

Hocus Pocus 2 drops on Disney+ on September 30 when another three high-school students awaken the witches again after spending almost three decades in purgatory.

The three actresses helped work on the storyline for the new film, which wrapped filming earlier this year in Salem, Massachusetts.

The witches will wake up to find Salem a hotbed of tourist activity with thousands flocking to soak up the supernatural tales from yesteryear.

The three teens, played by Whitney Peak, Belissa Escobedo, and Lilia Buckingham, who reawaken the wicked sisters into the world, must figure out to stop them before they unleash a reign of terror. Kathy Naijmy (R), Bette Midler, and Sarah Jessica Parker appeared in the 1993 film “Hocus Pocus.” The sequel will debut on Disney+ on September 30, 2022. 

But despite being teenagers, the three adolescents are no victims and put up a good fight against the Sanderson sisters.

“There are three young girls who are relatively new to the world. They’re not witches, but they have the potential to become witches, to follow in our footsteps,” Midler told EW.

“Pitting the young against the veterans, it’s a conflict that audiences like to see. Who’s going to win? Or, is anybody going to win?”

She added: “It’s well thought-out and constructed, and it’ll be satisfying because it’s conflict, but conflict in a great special effects way, and a great magical way.”

Newsweek reached out to Disney for comment.