Sad beautiful woman reportedly makes a bloomer (8)
I believe the answer is:
bluebell
'a bloomer' is the definition.
(bluebell is a kind of flowering plant)
'sad beautiful woman reportedly' is the wordplay.
'sad' becomes 'blue' ('blue' can be similar in meaning to 'sad').
'beautiful woman' becomes 'belle' (I've seen this before).
'reportedly' shows a homophone (sound like).
'belle' sounds like 'bell'.
'blue'+'bell'='BLUEBELL'
'makes' is the link.
(Other definitions for bluebell that I've seen before include "The wood hyacinth in S England" , "Scottish flower" , "It's also called wild hyacinth" , "Perennial" , "Plant with bell-shaped flowers" .)