Bette Midler found herself in the midst of a furious backlash on Tuesday night after she took to Twitter to slam Melania Trump as an “illegal alien” and criticized her English skills during the first lady’s Republican National Convention (RNC) speech.
“She can speak several words in a few languages. Get that illegal alien off the stage!” Midler wrote on Twitter as she launched her attack on the president’s wife. “Oh, God. She still can’t speak English.”
Midler continued her rant as she declared Melania an “awful person” who “lacks warmth so severely that I just had to turn my AC down,” amid a number of other furious tweets.
Anodyne, anodyne, nothing but simple minded pablum. “I have to remind myself that I am very lucky.” I completely agree! You are one lucky Slovenian! And after all that surgery, you hit a kind of horrible jackpot, chained to an colossal idiot.
— bettemidler (@BetteMidler) August 26, 2020
Twitter users from both sides of the political spectrum roasted Midler for her controversial comments.
Piers Morgan parodied Midler’s tweet as he wrote, “Oh, God. Bette Midler’s a racist,” while Republican Senate candidate Mark Curran labeled the actor’s remarks “xenophobic.”
“Is this the tolerance and love that the Democrat Party refers to?,” asked Lauren Boebert, Republican nominee for Congress.
Midler was not spared by Trump’s critics, who suggested that if the singer was going to take aim at Melania, she should focus on doing so for more legitimate reasons.
Writer Joanna Schroeder said, “Of all things to criticize Melania for – being a racist birther, marrying the worst president in US history, supporting all his horrific policies, her offensive jacket…You choose this?”
Schroeder accused Midler of furthering the idea that speaking with an accent is a bad thing in America. “Let’s not,” she finished.
As The Daily Mail reported, Melania spoke of her immigrant background in her RNC appearance last night and highlighted she was able to achieve her own American Dream. The publication noted that the first lady arrived in the U.S. in the 1990s and received American citizenship in 2006.
During her speech, Melania recalled growing up in Slovenia under communist rule, according to the publication, where she dreamed of a life working in the fashion industry in the U.S. At the event, Donald Trump’s wife also called for an ending to what she described as “violence and looting” during the protests following the tragic death of George Floyd.
This was not the first time Midler had gone head-to-head with a member of the Trump dynasty, the news source noted. The president previously labeled the entertainer a “washed up psycho” after she shared a Trump quote on social media that later turned out to be fake.
While Midler disparaged the first lady during her RNC speech, according to The Inquisitr , White House trade advisor Peter Navarro praised her as the “Jackie Kennedy of her time” ahead of the event. Navarro pointed to what he described as Melania’s “beauty,” “elegance,” and “soft-spokenness,” and said he believed she would deliver a powerful message to the people of America.