After Geraldo Rivera came out swinging to defend Matt Lauer against sexual assault and harassment, it didn’t take long for him to be implicated in his own scandal.
It came in the form of a 1991 interview in which Bette Midler told Barbara Walters about the time she says Geraldo and his producer pushed her into a bathroom, drugged her, and “groped” her.
Video: Sandra Bullock Was NOT Having Matt Lauer’s Creepiness In This 2009 Today Interview!
Sadly, 1991 was not 2017, and nothing ever came of the accusation.
But Bette was paying attention and noted on Twitter that Geraldo had never spoken to her about the incident, writing:
Tomorrow is my birthday. I feel like this video was a gift from the universe to me. Geraldo may have apologized for his tweets supporting Matt Lauer, but he has yet to apologize for this. #MeToo pic.twitter.com/TkcolFWfA2
— Bette Midler (@BetteMidler) November 30, 2017
Well now the Fox News pundit has apologized, to both Bette and others he spoke about in his book. But his apology was a bit tainted by the fact he also kind of exonerated himself.
He wrote:
27 years ago I wrote a tawdry book depicting consensual events in 1973-45 years ago-I’ve deeply regretted its distasteful & disrespectful tone & have refrained from speaking about it-I’m embarrassed & profoundly sorry to those mentioned-I have & again apologize to anyone offended
— Geraldo Rivera (@GeraldoRivera) December 1, 2017
Although I recall the time @BetteMidler has alluded to much differently than she, that does not change the fact that she has a right to speak out & demand an apology from me, for in the very least, publically embarrassing her all those years ago. Bette, I apologize.
— Geraldo Rivera (@GeraldoRivera) December 1, 2017
This just doesn’t seem like enough for what she accused him of. But at least it’s better than the nothing she got for the last 27 years?
Oh yeah — happy birthday, Bette!
[Image via David Edwards/DailyCeleb/Media Punch/RW.]
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