Maybe her best work was before my time but I’ve always thought of her as a society matron masquerading as a journalist. She was too much of an insider with powerbrokers to hold anyone’s feet to the fire unless they were D-listers. Look at the way she dismissed Corey Feldman when he tried to even hint at abuse.

They literally didn’t care because they didn’t have to. I remember Middler saying that (and  also on Oprah ?) and though my parents were disgusted and always looked down on Rivera since then, there just wasn’t the reaction you see now. What could viewers do? Maybe track down an address and write to Rivera’s TV station…

Exhibit A: Monica Lewinsky.

And people should know it isn’t like this is a 70s thing. That was a classic part of 90s feminism.

That expectation is still very real in a lot of firms.

Her side of the story really isn’t *that* different. This is a real she said he also said situation.

Wild guess.... It’s been 5 yrs and a day since Geraldo sexually assaulted someone.

I mean, they got rid of Bill O’Reilly...here’s hoping

How did no one care or do anything about this back in 1991?? Like, wtf is Geraldo Rivera still doing on TV. This is so disgusting and I hope we can continue to bring down these powerful abusers until there are no more standing. (Wishful thinking, I know)

That she immediately tries to laugh it off makes the hurt of it so much more real for me. He is a fucking piece of human garbage, and I hope he is shitcanned within the week. Fuck him.

LOCK HIM UP!

And they say it while minimizing what happened no matter how heinous and this is 2017, imagine their reaction 10 or 20 years ago.

Holy fuck, that was like the Kate McKinnon snl old Hollywood sketch but....real? So disturbing, I feel for her.

It really says something about what a talentless hack of a journalist Geraldo Rivera is that his utterly worthless Al Capone Vault story was more than 30 years ago and that’s pretty much the only thing he’s known for.

Geraldo a molester?

It feels relevant to bring up this old Jezebel article again. There’s no way it was just Bette Midler.

It’s very generous to describe Geraldo’s word-vomit as “thoughts”

What the fuck is with Barbara’s reaction? I mean I know she’s responded terribly before when people in interviews have tried to discuss assault, but good grief.

If some one night stand came out and publicly talked about how we banged 30-40 years later, I'd be pissed. Shit, I be pissed if it was the next day. That stays private and between friends only. It's is a ring of Hell lower than people who instagram you drunk when you are all tying one off.

Poor Bette Midler. She REALLY did not want to revisit that past and who can blame her. We all do dumb things in our youth.