Bette Midler slams 'wild and woolly slut' Britney

Until, that is, she was confronted with the brazenly obscene antics of Britney Spears and Lindsay Lohan.

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So, in a scathing, no holds barred attack, the 61-year-old actress has branded the pair 'wild and woolly sluts'.

The singer turned Oscar-nominated actress hit out at the duo who have been repeatedly photographed enjoying a string of wild nights out - missing their underwear.

'I've been on the other side to these wild and woolly sluts that we are seeing around our lives these days and I've taken the other side,' she said.

'I started my life out as pretty wild but I have decided, after much growing and living, that it's time that we got nicer.'

Talking about the pair's headline-grabbing decision to be snapped minus any underwear, she joked: 'I'm wearing underwear, in fact a lot of underwear.

'In fact I'm wearing all the underwear that those girls are not wearing - at least two bras and several pairs of panties.'

When asked on the US TV show Extra if she had a message for the American socialites, she replied: 'Get a life, get a grip. I mean someone should sit those ladies down.'

Her tirade comes after Miss Spears, 25, and 20-year-old Miss Lohan, together with heiress Paris Hilton, have been photographed drinking and partying virtually non-stop over the past six weeks.

Their antics followed Britney's announcement last month that she was divorcing her second husband, Kevin Federline.

Of course, Miss Midler, who is married to her husband of 22 years, producer Martin von Haselberg, is not the first celebrity to have frowned on mother-of-two Miss Spears' recent behaviour.

Troubled singer Courtney Love suggested that she should stay at home more to look after her children while former supermodel Janice Dickinson claimed that Britney's would be wise to 'buckle down and become a parent'.

This latest criticism comes just 24 hours after it was reported that the Los Angeles Department of Children and Family Services planned to investigate the singer about concerns over the welfare of her two children, Sean Preston and Jayden James.

Similarly, it has been an unfortunate week for Mean Girls star, Lindsay Lohan. The brunette actress, who recently joined Alcoholics Anonymous, has reportedly sent a second rambling, semi-literate e-mail to her friends - less than two weeks after making an incoherent tribute to late director Robert Altman.

In a letter obtained by the New York Post, she claimed that she planned to take on gossip columns with the help of former Vice President Al Gore.

'Al Gore will help me,' she wrote. 'He came up to me last night and said he would be very happy to have a conversation with me.

'If he is willing to help me, let's find out. Hilary (sic) Clinton, Bill Clinton and Evan Metroplis (sic) and John Daur who works with them would be willing, if we just ask. If we just ASK.'