Bette Midler Tells Lady Gaga: 'Mermaid's Mine'

Legendary actress and singer Bette Midler was not happy with Lady Gaga's latest mythical creature gimmick. When Gaga wheeled her half-human, half-fish costume onstage at a recent show in Australia, Midler took to Twitter to voice the apparent plagiarism. "I've been doing singing mermaid in a wheelchair since 1980 — You can keep the meat dress and the firecracker t–s," Midler tweeted at Gaga. "Mermaid's mine." The tweet refers to Gaga's famous "meat dress" she wore to the 2010 MTV Video Music Awards and the flaming bra that has been featured in Gaga's videos and live performances.

Gaga never tweeted back, but when she heard that Midler was unhappy she said she was not copying — she just was not aware Midler got there first. “I’m a huge Bette Midler fan. Maybe we’re just cut from the same cloth," the pop star told Access Hollywood. "I couldn’t hop around in that tail so I just stuck myself in a wheelchair. All I’ll say is that I admire her and find her to be one of the most brilliant and incredible performers, so that’s all I’ll say.”

Gaga's response apparently placated the Beaches star. A day after her rant, Midler offered the laurel branch in a new tweet. "Let's drink this over at the Emmys in September," she wrote to Gaga. "Fabulous mermaids can coexist!" In her most recent tweet mentioning the "Born This Way" singer, Midler praised Gaga and left her with a word of advice, from one diva to another. "Gaga, what got you where you are: your wonderful voice, ability on piano… and writing great hooky tunes that the whole world wants to dance to, will never let you down. The rest is icing. Treat it as such."