Bette Midler is apologizing for making fun of Melania Trump as the first lady spoke at the Republican National Convention — but not entirely.
“Well, all hell has broken loose because I said Melania ‘still can’t speak English’ last night,” Midler tweeted Wednesday. “I was wrong to make fun of her accent. America is made up [of] people who speak with all kinds of accents, and they are all welcomed always.”
Midler’s apology comes after the Grammy-winning singer tweeted a series of xenophobic and sexist jokes aimed at the first lady as she delivered her speech Tuesday night. In one tweet, “The First Wives Club” star, 74, viciously slammed Trump’s accent.
“Oh, God. She still can’t speak English,” Midler wrote.
The first lady, 50, was born in Slovenia, which was then Yugoslavia. Her first language is Slovenian. Trump moved to New York in the 1990s to work as a fashion model. In 2001 she scored a so-called Einstein visa for “individuals of extraordinary ability” and in 2005 married President Donald Trump. becoming his third wife. She became a U.S. citizen in 2006, and sponsored her parents, Viktor and Amalija Knavs, who became citizens in 2018.
Despite Melania Trump’s citizenship, Midler still hurled another xenophobic attack at the first lady on Tuesday night — and didn’t apologize for it.
Calling her a “bore,” Midler tweeted. “Get that illegal alien off the stage!”
The “Beaches” star didn’t stop there, either. Referring to the president, she also tweeted:
Returning her fire to the first lady, she posted:
Many Twitter users called out the “From a Distance” singer for her problematic tweets.
Midler did not initially apologize when she first began receiving criticism for her tweets.
The backlash spurred by Midler’s Melania Trump tweets contrasted with the response she received on Monday, after bashing both Donald Trump Jr. and his girlfriend, Kimberly Guilfoyle, an adviser to the president’s reelection campaign, for their speeches at the convention that night.