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Gal Gadot recently addressed the controversy surrounding her star-studded rendition of John Lennon’s Imagine. The cover video received severe criticism on social media for being “tone deaf” when it was released at the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic in 2020.
Two years later, the Wonder Woman star told InStyle that she found the controversy “funny.” She also mentioned that the video was made with “pure intentions” but admitted that it was “in poor taste.”
Prior to the latest interview, the actress also responded to the backlash while speaking to Vanity Fair in October 2021:
"Sometimes, you know, you try and do a good deed and it's just not the right good deed. I had nothing but good intentions and it came from the best place, and I just wanted to send light and love to the world."
The former Miss Israel even poked fun at herself by jokingly crooning a few lines from Imagine while accepting an award at the Elle Women in Hollywood Awards last year.
Why was Gal Gadot’s ‘Imagine’ cover criticized?
In March 2020, nearly a week after the World Health Organization declared COVID-19 a global pandemic, Gal Gadot created a cover video of John Lennon’s Imagine while quarantining at her home.
The video featured several celebrities including the likes of Natalie Portman, Mark Ruffalo, Jimmy Fallon, Zoe Kravitz, Amy Adams, Sia, Norah Jones, Sarah Silverman, Maya Rudolph and Will Ferell, among others.
Gal Gadot opened the clip by saying she was feeling “philosophical” and created the video with the aim of assuring that the world will get through the crisis together:
“These past few days got me feeling a bit philosophical. You know this virus has affected the entire world, everyone. It doesn’t matter who you are, where you’re from. We’re all in this together.”
However, the video faced immediate backlash on social media as people claimed that the tone of the video was inappropriate for the critical situation of the pandemic. American pop music critic Jon Caramanica slammed the clip in an article in The New York Times:
“You might say that every crisis gets the multi-celebrity car-crash pop anthem it deserves, but truly no crisis — certainly not one as vast and unsettling as the current one — deserves this.”
Other critics mainly called out the celebrities for making a creative video highlighting the theme of “no possessions” in a time when the world was dealing with difficult socio-economic problems and life-threatening conditions.
Gal Gadot addresses ‘Imagine’ video backlash two years after its release
Gal Gadot recently appeared in the cover story of InStyle’s February issue and opened up about her infamous Imagine video and her reaction to the recurring criticism.
During the interview, the Red Notice actress mentioned that she had organized the video with the help of her friend Kristen Wiig, and admitted that it was a “premature” decision:
“I was calling Kristen [Wiig] and I was like, "Listen, I want to do this thing." The pandemic was in Europe and Israel before it came here [to the U.S.] in the same way. I was seeing where everything was headed. But [the video] was premature.”
The DCEU star also mentioned that the video was made with good intentions but did not transcend the way she planned:
“It wasn't the right timing, and it wasn't the right thing. It was in poor taste. All pure intentions, but sometimes you don't hit the bull's-eye, right?”
The 36-year-old even shared why she decided to perform the song during her appearance at the Elle Women in Hollywood Awards:
“It just felt right, and I don't take myself too seriously… I felt like I wanted to take the air out of it, so that [event] was a delightful opportunity to do that.”
In addition to addressing the controversy, Gal Gadot also gave an insight into her upcoming projects. The actress will appear in Kenneth Branagh's Death on the Nile and has also landed a role in the upcoming Cleopatra biopic.
