Gal Gadot is ready to admit that her star-studded attempt to “Imagine” a better world didn’t exactly land the way she hoped.
Nearly two years after the Wonder Woman star, , posted a viral cover of John Lennon’s classic anthem at the start of the COVID- pandemic, she’s getting candid about the backlash. Speaking with InStyle for their February issue, Gadot confessed that while she meant well, the execution was off.
“It wasn’t the right timing, and it wasn’t the right thing,” Gadot told Editor in Chief Laura Brown. “It was in poor taste.”
The video, which debuted on March , , featured a montage of A-list celebrities—including Natalie Portman, Jimmy Fallon, Zoë Kravitz, Will Ferrell, and Amy Adams—singing lines from the song while in self-quarantine. At the time, the clip sparked an immediate wave of “cringe” across X (formerly Twitter) and TikTok, with many users feeling the video was out of touch while the world faced a global crisis.
Gadot explained that because the pandemic had hit Europe and Israel before reaching the U.S. with the same intensity, she felt she was seeing where things were headed. “I was calling Kristen [Wiig] and I was like, ‘Listen, I want to do this thing,'” she recalled.
Despite the “pure intentions” behind the project, Gadot now realizes the video was “premature.” She compared the misstep to a missed shot, saying, “Sometimes you don’t hit the bull’s-eye, right?”
The actress hasn’t been afraid to poke fun at herself, though. During the Elle Women in Hollywood awards in October, she famously walked up to the microphone and sang a few lines of the song to break the tension.
“Might as well. They had a mic there,” she joked about the decision. “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.”
This isn’t the first time Gadot has tried to “send light and love” through the controversy. In an earlier interview with Vanity Fair, she noted that she started the project with a few friends before Kristen Wiig—whom she calls the “mayor of Hollywood”—brought even more stars on board.
“I can only say that I meant to do something good and pure, and it didn’t transcend,” Gadot admitted.
While the video remains a permanent fixture in internet history, it seems Gadot is happy to laugh along with the rest of us. After all, even superheroes have an off day!
Would you like me to look up more of the most memorable celebrity viral moments from the start of the pandemic?
