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Remember that really deranged video Gal Gadot put together of her and other famous pals all singing “Imagine”? You’ve probably repressed it from your memory, but deep down you know what we’re referring to. Well, two years later and the actress finally admitted that the infamous clip probably wasn’t such a good idea after all. In fact, it was actually in quite “poor taste”.
Viewed more than 10 million times on Instagram, Gadot told InStyle that the idea was most definitely prompted by “pure intentions” – even if that wasn’t how the public viewed it. Shared online at the very beginning of the pandemic, this was back when we thought the whole thing would only last two weeks, so to say that the gang was a little pre-emptive in their “we’re all in this together” message would be an understatement.
Explaining that she had been in isolation for six days, the Wonder Woman star admitted that the experience had left her feeling “philosophical”. So much so that she was inspired to rally her friends (from afar, of course) and get them all to sing a line from one of John Lennon’s most famous hits. Sounds bizarre writing it down, is even more bizarre watching it play out in real-time.
Captioning it “We are in this together, we will get through it together”, the video quickly went viral online though not for the reasons Gal probably expected it to and many accused it of being tone-deaf and completely missing the mark. Not even the stacked line-up of celebrity cameos throughout could save it. Everyone from Kaia Gerber to Cara Delevigne, Zoe Kravitz, Labyrinth, Jimmy Fallon, Natalie Portman, and even our own Jamie Dornan was involved.
Hindsight is a wonderful thing though and Gal has since seen the error of her ways, telling InStyle Magazine that timing was the real issue. “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,” she noted.
Roscommon man and Bridesmaid actor Chris O’Dowd has also made his own #ragrets at being involved in the project very clear, describing it as “creative diarrhoea” to Louis Theroux on his podcast, Grounded, last year. “In terms of my interpretation of it, I think the backlash was justified,” he said.
Asked to partake in the video by friend and former colleague Kristen Wiig, O’Dowd admitted that he said yes without ever really giving it a second thought. “I’ll do anything Kristen asks me to do, so, of course, we just did it. It took five minutes, didn’t think about it. I presumed it was for kids. We were in that first wave of creative diarrhoea that seemed to encase the entire world.”
While the “Imagine” catastrophe is definitely up there as one of the worst pop-culture low points of the pandemic, the celebrity handwashing videos are a close second. Some celebs even went so far as to actually challenge each other to wash their hands properly?! And we all actually watched them do it??? I’m so glad that era has since ended. I never needed to see Brandon Flowers washing his hands while singing Mr Brightside into the mirror, nor did I want to.