Bette Midler attacked by Trump as 'washed up psycho' after fake quote apology

US president posted the tweet during his state visit to the UK

(Evan Agostini/Invision/AP)

Donald Trump has attacked Bette Midler on Twitter, calling the actor and singer a “washed up psycho” after she apologised for sharing a fake quote attributed to him.

On Sunday 2 June, Midler shared a fabricated quote that was presented as having been made by Trump in a fake interview with People Magazine from 1998.

The quote said: “If I were to run, I’d run as a Republican. They’re the dumbest group of voters in the country. They love anything on Fox News. I could lie and they’d still eat it up. I bet my numbers would be terrific."

Midler captioned the tweet, “He certainly knew his crowd.”

She later deleted the post and apologised, commenting: “It sounds so much like him that I believed it was true!”

Trump, who is currently on a state visit to the UK, lashed out at Midler on Twitter and wrote: “Washed up psycho @BetteMidler was forced to apologize for a statement she attributed to me that turned out to be totally fabricated by her in order to make ‘your great president’ look really bad. She got caught, just like the Fake News Media gets caught. A sick scammer!”

The tweet was posted at 1.30am, London time.

Trump has previously attacked Midler, who in turn has been vocal in her criticism of the US president.

In a tweet posted back in 2012 he said: “While @BetteMidler is an extremely unattractive woman, I refuse to say that because I always insist on being politically correct.”

In another post made that same year, he claimed to have never liked her, and that he hadn’t heard her name in years. Following her performance at the 2014 Academy Awards, he said that she “sucked”.