Bette Midler was slammed on Wednesday after she promoted fake news about Republican Arizona gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake from a parody website.
The 76-year-old actress shared a screenshot from the “About Me” section of the satire site mocking Lake, describing her as embracing “far-right nationalism and the forceful suppression of any opposition.” The page went on to say Lake “strongly” opposes “democracy.”
“Heeere’s #KariLake, running for Gov of #Arizona, spewer of Q-anon conspiracies and all around nasty nut job!” Midler tweeted to her 2.1 million followers. “Don’t let the cute package fool you! She’s lethal!”
Heeere’s #KariLake, running for Gov of #Arizona, spewer of Q-anon conspiracies and all around nasty nut job! Don’t let the cute package fool you! She’s lethal! pic.twitter.com/U5XvAhG7bd
— bettemidler (@BetteMidler) November 2, 2022
Reading through the comments, many people noted that the site included a disclaimer: “This Website Is Parody & Proudly Created By Toby Morton.”
“It’s lifted from a fake/parody site,” one person wrote to Midler.
Another shared, “This is Fake. Badly done Bette.”
One Twitter follower wrote, “As awful as she is, you’re sharing a fake webpage – and doing that only blunts efforts to argue against her.”
While another tweeted, “This website is a parody account , it shows this at the bottom of the page . Do bette[r].”
“Don’t share fake info./memes,” one person wrote. “The real stuff is bad enough on its own!”
Another shared, “This is obviously a parody web site. You are not doing any favors by posting this as if these were Kari Lake’s own words.”
While another person brought it back to the actress blasting the GOP for reportedly spreading misinformation, noting Midler did just that.
“Typical liberal hypocrite, spends how many tweets yelling about GOP spreading lies at election time, but then you take a screen grab of a site that even acknowledges it is parody, a screen grab to circumvent potential filters,” the person wrote. “You’re trash, & the worst actress in HP series #fact.”
At the time of this publication, the “Beaches” star had yet to respond to the numerous tweets calling out that she was promoting a fake website, and the post was still up.