REUTERS/Shannon Stapleton
Geraldo Rivera on Friday apologized for allegedly drugging and groping Bette Midler, as well as the tone of his “tawdry” memoir, following a Daily Beast story on the book published late Thursday. Rivera said he is “embarrassed” about what he wrote in 1991’s Exposing Myself; additionally claiming all described incidents were “consensual events,” despite the fact that he knows the tone was “distasteful” and “disrespectful.” Rivera also said he’s “profoundly sorry” to the women involved in the described events. In a separate tweet, the Fox News star directly addressed Midler’s decades-old accusation: “Although I recall the time @BetteMidler has alluded to much differently than she, that does not change the fact that she has a right to speak out & demand an apology from me, for in the very least, publically [sic] embarrassing her all those years ago. Bette, I apologize.” Midler herself said this week of the “unseemly” encounter: “I did not offer myself up on the altar of Geraldo Rivera.”