First comes the fooling around, then comes the finding out. Bette Midler is at the finding-out stage. The overrated liberal diva says she can’t afford to stay in Midtown Manhattan anymore now that Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s City Hall has sent over what she owes for 2027.
Midler, who has spent years cheering on progressive politicians and trashing Republicans online, says the bill came as a shock. She told friends she nearly dropped her coffee when she opened it.
“This isn’t even my second home,” Midler said. “Why do I owe him a fifth of everything I have for owning a bunch of houses? Just four are in the city.”
Under Mamdani’s new tax plan, wealthy New Yorkers who own multiple properties in the city are facing steep new charges. The mayor has described it as a way to make the richest residents pay their “fair share” for housing, transit, and the long list of programs he promised during his campaign.
Midler says she supported that idea. At least, she did when she thought it applied to somebody else.
She says she worked hard to get Zohran Mamdani elected because she thought he’d be squeezing billionaires. She posted about him, raised money for his campaign, and told her fans he was exactly what the city needed.
“I’m still about $900 million short of that,” she said. “I can’t afford New York anymore. There’s just too much communism.”
People close to Midler say she has been calling her accountants nonstop since the bill arrived. She has reportedly looked into selling at least one of her city properties and is weighing whether to move her main residence somewhere with lower taxes.
“She’s in shock,” one friend said. “She really thought this was going to hit the hedge fund guys. She didn’t think it would land on her doorstep.”
Midler has been a fixture on Broadway and in Hollywood for more than half a century. She won Tony Awards, starred in hit films like “Beaches” and “Hocus Pocus,” and built a fortune along the way. In recent years, though, she has become just as well-known for her political posts, many of which attack conservatives in colorful language.
Her critics were not sympathetic. Many pointed out online that she spent years telling everyone else to pay more. “She voted for it. She campaigned for it. Now she’s mad about it,” one man wrote. “That’s the whole story.”
City Hall didn’t seem bothered either. A spokesperson for the mayor’s office said the new tax is “working exactly as intended” and that New Yorkers with multiple luxury properties can afford to contribute more.
Some of Midler’s fans defended her, saying she was being unfairly targeted and that the city’s new taxes went too far. A few urged her to stay and fight the bill.
Midler hasn’t announced where she might go. But for now, the woman who once begged New Yorkers to vote left is looking at the bill and wondering what happened. One at a time, they’re all learning what communism really means.