Gal Gadot has sought to explain the thinking behind her widely ridiculed cover of the John Lennon song Imagine, posted to Instagram at the start of the pandemic.
The video, which featured Gadot along with stars including Kristen Wiig, Natalie Portman, Will Ferrell, Zoë Kravitz and Jamie Dornan each singing a line from the song, was intended as a statement of solidarity.
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“We are in this together, we will get through it together,” Gadot captioned the original post from March 2020, but many criticised the project as tone deaf, highlighting the apparent disconnect between lyrics such as “imagine no possessions” warbled from multimillion dollar mansions while hundreds of thousands lost their lives, relatives, jobs and homes.
Speaking to InStyle magazine, Gadot said that the timing of video – now viewed more than 10m times – was the central problem. “The pandemic was in Europe and Israel before it came [to the US] in the same way.
“I was seeing where everything was headed. But [the video] was premature. 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 bullseye.”
At the time of posting, Gadot had been in isolation for almost a week, she said, and watching the crisis unfold had left her feeling “philosophical”.
Speaking to Vanity Fair last year, Gadot was unapologetic about the video, calling it “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.
“I can only say that I meant to do something good and pure, and it didn’t transcend.”