Bette Midler held nothing back.
Three days after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade on June 24, 2022, the actress and singer, then 76 years old, posted a sentence on Twitter that went viral within minutes: “It’s time to ban Viagra. Because if pregnancy is ‘God’s will,’ so is your limp penis”. Before that, she had already reacted to the ruling with another message: “They did it! They did it to us! The Court overturned Roe v. Wade, a law enshrined in the Constitution for more than 50 years. How dare they?”.
The Viagra tweet received more than 35.000 retweets and 244.000 likes. Some celebrated the comparison—”I love it, the flaccid-penis Republican Party”, one user wrote—and others questioned it, recalling that the medication is vital for people with heart and respiratory problems.
Midler thus joined other figures such as Chelsea Handler in the chorus of celebrities who came out to criticize the ruling that week, in an exchange that ended up exposing the rift the decision left behind, both among public figures and their followers.
