Bette Midler's 2000 CBS sitcom Bette didn't live long on the air — though it lives forever in infamy, thanks to a loungey a cappella version of Kid Rock's "Bawitdaba" she performed on it. 

In short, the show was "a flop," one of the worst of her career, she told David Duchovny's Fail Better podcast. 

The Tony, Emmy and Grammy winner unpacked the "extremely chaotic" situation, and while she admitted she "didn't know what it meant to make [a sitcom]," she also threw some shade at her onscreen daughter Lindsay Lohan. 

"After the pilot, Lindsay Lohan decided she didn't want to do it. Or she had other fish to fry," Midler revealed.

"So, Lindsay Lohan left the building. And I said, 'Well, now what do you do?'"

Duchovny noted Lohan's contract should have prevented that exit, but Midler was afraid of standing up for herself as a producer for fear of being "labeled a grandstander."

"If I had been in my right mind, or if I had known that part of my duties were to stand up to say, 'This absolutely will not do, I'm gonna sue,' then I would have done that," Midler said.

The performer also revealed she was "glad" she was fired the day after she did an interview about the sitcom on The Late Show with David Letterman. When Dave asked her about the show, Midler said, "It's the worst thing I've ever done in my entire life," adding, "It's like being a dung beetle, rolling a pile of s*** up a hill." 

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While the second half of the sixth season of the Showtime original series The Chi doesn't start on the streaming service until Friday, May 10, Paramount+ and Showtime just announced they have re-upped the Lena Waithe-created show for a seventh season.

The show's on-air debut will be Sunday, May 12, at 9 p.m. ET on Showtime. 

The first half of season six was the most-watched season yet on Paramount+, with viewership jumping 25% over season 5, the networks said. 

Production on the seventh season kicks off later in May in Chicago.

Nina L. Diaz, president of content and the chief creative officer for Showtime/MTV Networks and Paramount Media Networks, said in the announcement, "Lena Waithe is a generational storyteller, whose authentic and unflinching narratives in The Chi resonate deeply, offering a powerful lens into both the complexities of life in Chicago as well as the Black experience in America."

Diaz added, "On the heels of a record-breaking season and ahead of this week's return, we’re excited to provide fans with the promise of more — ensuring that they can continue to enjoy the raw, emotional stories and unforgettable characters that have made this seminal series a resounding success for Showtime."

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North West, Heather Headley and Lebo M. will join the cast of The Lion King at the Hollywood Bowl.

West, who is the daughter of Kim Kardashian and Kanye West, will star in the upcoming concert event special, which will celebrate the 30-year evolution of The Lion King, according to a press release.

West's role in the special hasn't been revealed yet. The roles of Headley, who originated the role of Nala in The Lion King Broadway musical, and Lebo M., the voice and spirit of The Lion King, are also unconfirmed.

Disney Branded Television and Fulwell 73 Productions will capture the performances with the Disney+ special The Lion King at the Hollywood Bowl, which will stream at a later date.

The concert special will include immersive live performances of the beloved songs from the 1994 film and a full orchestra, which will perform the Oscar-winning musical score by Hans Zimmer. 

Audiences can expect to see performances of fan-favorite songs including "Circle of Life," "Be Prepared" and "Hakuna Matata," which will be performed by the cast members of the original Disney movie, like Jeremy Irons, who voiced Scar, Nathan Lane and Ernie Sabella, who voiced Timon and Pumba; Billy Eichner, who played Timon in the 2019 live-action film; and Jason Weaver, who voiced young Simba in the original movie. 

Jennifer Hudson will also star in the upcoming special.

The Lion King at the Hollywood Bowl will take place May 24 and May 25. Tickets are on sale now at hollywoodbowl.com.

Disney is the parent company of ABC News.

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While it's still in the theaters, the new movie Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire is now available to own or rent in HD Digital on platforms like Apple TV+ and Prime Video. 

The follow-up to the 2021 hit Ghostbusters: Afterlife sees that movie's stars, including Paul Rudd, Carrie Coon, Finn Wolfhard and Mckenna Grace, joining original 'Busters Bill Murray, Dan Aykroyd, Ernie Hudson — and even Annie Potts — to take on Garraka, an apocalyptic demon who freezes New York City solid in the middle of the summer. 

Helping the gang are series newcomers Kumail Nanjiani as Nadeem, a scammer who finds he might literally hold the ability to save the city in the palms of his hands, and Patton Oswalt's Dr. Wartzki, an eccentric academic who schools them on the Garraka lore. 

When asked by ABC Audio what being in the movie was like for a dyed-in-the-wool geek like him, the veteran of Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., the Oscar-winning animated film Ratatouille, and dozens of other projects on the big and small screen, was still at a loss for words. 

"I mean, I got to be in a Ghostbusters movie for crying out loud," he gushed. 

"I don't know ... I'm not dodging your question, but I'm being honest and going, I don't have the words yet to articulate it," Oswalt says.

He continued, "I hung out with Dan Aykroyd for weeks in London. It was the best."  

Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire comes packed with supplemental material, including deleted scenes and a gag reel — all of which are teased in a new video posted by Sony Pictures.

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While the couple made their red carpet debut together at a Grammys watch party back in February, Bob Saget's widow Kelly Rizzo and her new man, Road Trip and Robot Chicken veteran Breckin Meyer, have made their relationship Instagram official.

To celebrate Meyer turning the big 5-0 on Tuesday, May 7, Rizzo posted a photo of them together, taken over the previous weekend at the F1 Grand Prix in Miami.

"HAPPY BIRTHDAY!! To the man who is kind, sweet, silly, thoughtful, completely hilarious, handsome, understanding, charming, forever curious, compassionate, witty, warm & wonderful," the 44-year-old wrote about her new beau to her more than 436,000 Insta followers.

Some of those followers included celebs like 90210's Brian Austin Green, Taylor Lautner, and Melissa Coulier, the wife of Saget's former Full House co-star Dave Coulier. All of whom threw many heart emojis the couple's way, and well-wishes to Meyer for his big day.

At the February event at which the couple first stepped out together, Rizzo told E! that Saget's adult
daughters Aubrey and Lara supported her new romance with the actor. "It's wonderful, it just meant so much to have their blessing," Rizzo said at the time. Calling them "angels," she added, "to have them support is so meaningful."

Further, Rizzo, 44, said of her relationship with the actor, "[It] took a while to get to the point where I'm like, 'OK, I think [Saget would] be happy with it.'"

Saget died in his Florida hotel room January 9, 2022. The cause of death for the 65-year-old actor and comedian was determined to be head trauma.

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ABC has greenlit a new iteration of the reality show Extreme Makeover: Home Edition, the network announced on Tuesday. The Home Edit's Clea Shearer and Joanna Teplin will host the show, which, like the original series, will feature, "heartwarming stories inspired volunteers, and mind-blowing builds for deserving families who give back to their communities," per ABC ...

Billy Porter will receive the 2024 Isabelle Stevenson Tony Award in recognition of his outstanding dedication and contributions as an activist and spokesperson for the LGBTQ+ communities, the Tony Awards Administration Committee announced on May 7. The award is presented annually to a member of the theater community who has made a substantial contribution of volunteered time and effort on behalf of one or more humanitarian, social service or charitable organizations, per the Tony Awards. Porter's work includes The Elizabeth Taylor AIDS Foundation and the Entertainment Community Fund. The 77th annual Tony Awards, hosted by Ariana DeBose, will air live June 16 on CBS and stream on Paramount+ ...

NBC has shored up its comedy roster for the 2024-2025 season, renewing Lopez vs. Lopez for a third season and ordering the new series Happy's Place, starring Reba McEntire. Lopez vs. Lopez, starring George Lopez and his daughter Mayan, along with Selenis Leyva, Matt Shively, Brice Gonzalez and Al Madrigal, reached nearly 10 million total viewers across all platforms and he highest-indexing broadcast program among English-dominant Hispanic households, per the network. Happy's Place stars McEntire as Bobbie, who "inherits her father’s restaurant and is less than thrilled to discover that she has a new business partner in the half-sister she never knew she had. The series reunites McEntire with her Reba costar, Melissa Peterman. Meanwhile, Deadline reports the Jon Cryer series Extended Family has been canceled after one season ...

Susan Buckner, best known for playing cheerleader Patty Simcox alongside Olivia Newton-John in the movie Grease, "died peacefully" and "surrounded by loved ones" on May 2, family publicist Melissa Berthier tells Entertainment Weekly. She was 72. A cause of death was not revealed. Buckner was a member of the female song and dance troupe The Golddiggers, who appeared on The Dean Martin Show. She also made appearances on a number of 1980s TV shows, including The Love Boat, The Hardy Boys/Nancy Drew Mysteries and B.J. and the Bear. Her film roles included Wes Craven's Deadly Blessing with Sharon Stone and Police Academy 6: City Under Siege ...

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1994's Speed turned Keanu Reeves and Sandra Bullock into an unlikely action duo, and according to the John Wick series star, they need to get back on the bus.

The pair, who haven't shared the big screen since their 2006 romantic hit The Lake House, caught up on the Speed podcast 50 MPH, where Keanu said of a potential threequel, "We'd freakin' knock it out of the park."

Bullock vowed, "Before I die, before I leave this planet, I do think that Keanu and I need to do something in front of the camera. Are we, you know, in wheelchairs or with walkers? Maybe. Are we on little scooters at Disneyland?" she joked.

She added of their chemistry, "There's no formula. It just is."

Reeves agreed with his former co-star, adding, "It does feel like there is a siren call to it, like there's something that wasn’t done. I would love to work with you again before our eyes close."

Of course, Reeves backed out of 1997's Speed 2: Cruise Control, which shifted the action from a speeding bus to a slow-moving cruise ship. It became a bomb so big that Bullock told TooFab in 2022, "I’m still embarrassed I was in it."

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Barbie became the biggest movie of 2023 and, as reported, Mattel is opening its toy chest to find more box office gold by revving up a Matchbox movie.

ABC Audio has confirmed that Mattel Films has landed someone with serious action movie chops to bring it to the big screen: stunt coordinator-turned-Extraction franchise director Sam Hargrave.

The filmmaker is teaming up with bestselling author and The Adam Project screenwriter Jonathan Tropper and co-writer David Coggeshall (The Family Plan) to turn the beloved toy line created in 1953 into a movie for Skydance, which backs the Mission: Impossible films.

Incidentally, Mattel points out two Matchbox cars are sold every second somewhere around the world, and no doubt they're hoping that turns into ticket sales, too.

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Hilary Duff is now a mom of four.

The Lizzie McGuire and How I Met Your Father alum announced the arrival of her fourth child, a girl named Townes Meadow Bair, in an Instagram post Tuesday, May 7.

Townes was born May 3, according to the post.

"Now we know why she made us wait so long," Duff wrote in the caption of her post, which included sweet photos of the newest addition to her family. "She was perfecting those Cheeks!"

"I Have been dreaming of holding you in my arms for months and the past 5 days of getting to know you, stare at you and smell you has been pure moments of magic," she continued. "We all love you like you've been here all along beauty. 5/3/24."

Duff and husband Matthew Koma announced they were expecting again back in December.

"Surprise Surprise!" Duff captioned an Instagram post at the time, which included a photo of a family holiday card that read, "Buckle up Buttercups, we're adding one more to this crazy bunch!"

Koma also shared a family photo at that time, captioning it, "baby #4 is loading...."

This is Duff's third child with Koma. The couple, who married in 2019, welcomed daughter Banks Violet, 5, in 2018 and daughter Mae James, 3, in 2021.

Duff shares her eldest child, a 12-year-old son named Luca Cruz, with ex-husband Mike Comrie.

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On his Instagram on Tuesday afternoon, Jeremy Renner posted a smiling photo taken behind the scenes of the third season of his acclaimed Paramount+ drama Mayor of Kingstown. 

"We’ve been here in Pittsburgh, Pa for the entire year so far," Renner said. "Our end is near bestowing a new beginning for the fans."

The actor, who suffered a near-fatal snowplow accident in 2023, added, "I'm tired , but coming out of this stronger than I came in . Thank you all for the love and support. See you June 2."

Recently, Renner's Kingstown co-star Michael Beach told ABC Audio that the twice-Oscar-nominated actor "needs a little more breaks" on set post-accident. 

"He's always got to exercise. He's got to stretch. He's got special chairs to sit in and stuff like that," Beach explained. However, considering how recently his accident was, Beach added, "To see the things that he can do is incredible."

As Renner's post mentioned, Mayor of Kingstown returns to Paramount+ on June 2.

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Fresh from his everything-winning run for Oppenheimer, Robert Downey Jr. is headed to Broadway. 

Downey will produce and make his Broadway debut in McNeal, a new drama from Pulitzer winner Ayad Akhtar that will be helmed by Lincoln Center Theater resident director Bartlett Sher, the Tony winner whose 2018 adaptation of To Kill a Mockingbird became the bestselling American play in Broadway history.

Downey will play Jacob McNeal, "a great writer, one of our greatest, a perpetual candidate for the Nobel Prize in Literature," according to the announcement. "But McNeal also has an estranged son, a new novel, old axes to grind and an unhealthy fascination with Artificial Intelligence."

Lincoln Center calls Akhtar's new play "a startling and wickedly smart examination of the inescapable humanity – and increasing inhumanity – of the stories we tell."

Additional casting will be announced at a later date.

The play will be staged at the Vivian Beaumont Theater starting September 5, officially opening September 30 for a strictly limited engagement through November 24.

The venue isn't technically located in the city's Theater District, but is considered to be part of Broadway.

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On Disney's fiscal Q2 earnings call Tuesday, May 7, Disney CEO Bob Iger explained that a promised slow down of Marvel Studios projects is underway.

Amid poor performance from projects including Marvel's Secret Invasion on Disney+, Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania and The Marvels, as well as box office whiffs like Disney's animated Wish and Elemental, Iger noted to investors, "I've been working hard with the studio to reduce output and focus more on quality, that's particularly true with Marvel."

He continued, "In our zeal to greatly increase volume partially tied to this wanting to chase more global subs for our streaming platform [Disney+], some of our studios lost a little focus. So the first step that we've taken is that we've reduced volume, we reduced output, particularly in Marvel."

To that end, Iger said, "We're slowly going to decrease volume and go to probably about two TV series a year instead of what had become four, and reduce our film output from maybe four a year to two or at the maximum three."

Iger was bullish on "highly anticipated" theatrical releases coming soon, including Marvel Studios' Deadpool & Wolverine in July and the "robust" 2025 slate, including the repeatedly delayed Captain America: Brave New World and Fantastic Four.

Disney is the parent company of ABC News.

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In a video posted Tuesday, May 7, of Thing delivering scripts to the players that were, Netflix revealed the cast for the second season of its global hit Wednesday, including an impressive list of guest stars and the characters some of them will play.

These include Christopher Lloyd, who played Uncle Fester in the Addams Family movies; Absolutely Fabulous alumna Joanna Lumley, who will play Grandmama; and Thandiwe Newton from Westworld playing Dr. Fairburn. Other guests include The Sixth Sense's Haley Joel Osment, The Missing veteran Frances O’Connor and Heather Matarazzo from The Princess Diaries, whose roles weren't revealed.

Steve Buscemi is among the new cast members for the second season, playing Barry Dort; Billie Piper will play Capri.

The main cast includes, of course, Jenna Ortega as Wednesday, as well as season 1's returning stars, including Emma Myers (Enid), Joy Sunday (Bianca), Fred Armisen (Fester), Luis Guzmán (Gomez) and Catherine Zeta-Jones (Morticia).

The video ends with Thing stopping by Ortega's door and delivering her script. Jenna answers the door in her full Wednesday regalia and greets the disembodied hand. She reads the title page for the first script titled, "Here We Woe Again" then says, "More torture awaits."

In a statement, creators/writers/showrunners Al Gough and Miles Millar noted, "We are thrilled that the entire Addams family will be enrolling in Nevermore Academy this season along with a dream cast of icons and new faces."

Incidentally, missing from the cast was Percy Hynes White, who played Xavier Thorpe in the first season. The actor had been accused of sexual misconduct in social media posts — claims he called "false" and part of a "campaign of misinformation."

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The season 7 premiere of ABC's 9-1-1 drew the network's biggest Nielsen live-plus 35-day demo rating in over a year, according to The Wrap. The March 14 premiere of the drama drew 13.47 million total viewers and a 3.46 rating among adults 18-49. Viewership for the 9-1-1 launch nearly tripled the initial live-plus-same-day viewership of 4.93 million on ABC, which more than doubled to hit 10.1 million viewers within a week of viewing across ABC, Hulu and other digital platforms ...

Twilight and Spencer star Kristen Stewart has chosen Latvia over Hollywood to shoot her feature directorial debut, The Chronology of Water. "It's a fledging film culture there [in Latvia]," she tells Net-a-Porter. "Look, I'm all about the way we make movies here [in the US], but I needed a sort of radical detachment. I am not a director yet. I need to make a student film. I can't do that here." The adaptation of Lidia Yuknavitch's memoir, starring Imogen Poots, explores the author's experiences of addiction and childhood sexual abuse ...

Jim Parsons and Mayim Bialik will reprise their roles as Sheldon Cooper and Amy Farrah Fowler in the May 16 series finale of Young Sheldon, according to The Hollywood Reporter. Details are being kept under wraps, but the outlet has obtained first-look photos of their appearance in The Big Bang Theory's sunsetting prequel show, for which Parsons acts as narrator. The quirky TV couple last appeared onscreen together in Big Bang's May 2019 finale ...

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Break out the boutonnieres and corsages: the new teen comedy Prom Dates is now streaming on Hulu.

Julia Lester stars as high school senior Hannah, who is freshly out of the closet and ready to find her perfect prom date the night before the big dance. This marks Lester's first leading role in a film, and she tells ABC Audio she couldn’t have had a better experience.

“I had just come off of doing High School Musical: The Musical: The Series, and this project was the perfect next thing for me to do following that — still in the line of, like, a feel-good teen comedy, but a little more graduated, a little more raunchy, which I just had so much fun doing,” Lester said.

While co-stars Terry Hu and Jordan Buhat found inspiration in other teen comedies like Booksmart and American Pie, Lester looked to an unexpected high school movie.

“One of my dear, dear friends threw a Twilight and wine night party right after I booked the part, which was just so special,” Lester said. “I definitely watched Twilight to prepare for this.”

Kenny Ridwan, who co-stars as Hannah’s ex-boyfriend, Greg, said he didn’t have to look elsewhere for inspiration.

“I took maybe less inspiration from actual movies than I have from my actual life,” Ridwan said. “Greg comes from years of being a hopeless romantic.”

How does the movie compare to Lester's real-life prom experience?

“My prom was much tamer than this,” Lester said. “I planned everything in advance, so there was no 24-hour-before scramble. It was definitely a lot chiller. But I had a really great time at my prom. So, maybe that's also a difference, is that I actually enjoyed prom.”

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