Bette Midler Regrets Not Suing Lindsay Lohan Over Her Failed Sitcom

Bette Midler is still upset with Lindsay Lohan for bailing on their 2000s sitcom "Bette" ... and apparently feels like she should've taken her to court for jumping ship.

Bette opened up about the failed endeavor on David Duchovny's podcast "Fail Better," where she called the show a big mistake. The sitcom only ran for 1 season on CBS back in 2000 ... and Bette is now kinda pointing the finger at LiLo for its short tenure.

She says ... "Lindsay Lohan was cast as my daughter in the pilot. Well, after the pilot, Lindsay Lohan decided she didn’t want to do it. Or she had other fish to fry. So, Lindsay Lohan left the building. And I said, well, now what do you do?"

Bette goes on to say she was too green a producer at the time to know she could've stepped in and sued Lindsay for walking out. She added ... "I didn’t know that I could have taken charge, that I could have asserted, because I think because I was so terrified of being branded a grandstander."

Now, keep in mind, this all went down while Lindsay was still a kid ... before her notorious hard-partying ways led to her legal trouble as an adult. She was just a child actress at the time ... so, it seems a little unfair to blame her for 'Bette' not taking off.

BTW, BM bringing up LiLo isn't just coming up out of the blue -- just last week, Lindsay took to Instagram to share a pic of herself and Bette, where she praised her former boss.

She wrote ... "Had such a blast filming with the incredible @bettemidler 💕 #tbt"