Bette Midler's Mermaid Quote of the Year

Yesterday's Sun Herald Celebrity column ran a story called "Stars who said too much" by Lenny Ann Low. Thought you might want to check out the deconstructed famous 2012 Bette Midler mermaid quote, which gave us a laugh.

"I've been doing singing mermaid in a wheelchair since 1980. You can keep the meat dress and the firecracker tits – mermaid's mine." BETTE MIDLER, on Twitter, telling Lady Gaga that her performance in a Sydney nightclub was not so original.

Translation "I was a loopily dressed, outrageous singing diva way before you, sunshine." 

The fallout Gaga said she had no idea Midler had created a mermaid in a wheelchair act previously. "I couldn't hop around in that tail so I just stuck myself in a wheelchair," she said. 

Midler added that she wasn't irked by Gaga's performance: "[L]et's drink this over at the Emmys in September," she tweeted. "Fabulous mermaids can coexist!"

We learnt Loopily dressed outrageous singing divas share a spooky artistic synchronicity. We eagerly await Gaga stradding a naval cannon – a la Cher – or balletically flinging herseld around the misty British countryside in homage to Kate Bush's Wuthering Heights video.

Want to check out the original singing landlubber mermaid diva herself, then watch this video (Julie saw The Divine Miss M in concert in Australia many years ago and also has many of her original records in her music collection!) As far as we're concerned, Bette Midler was the original and best singing mermaid stage superstar!