Back in March, Sarah Silverman was one of the many stars who participated in Gal Gadot's controversial "Imagine" video — the supercut of celebrities singing John Lennon's hit song — that was released at the start of the coronavirus pandemic.
The video was met with a swift and fierce backlash online — people thought it was a perfect encapsulation of everything wrong with celebrity culture in 2020. A few stars have since attempted to distance themselves from their participation in the video, and Gal Gadot admitted in a recent interview that it was "not the right good deed."
Gal Gadot, Amy Adams, Natalie Portman, Pedro Pascal, Kristen Wiig, Jamie Dornan, Will Ferrell and Jimmy Fallon after posting that video of them singing “Imagine” off-key
Well, Sarah Silverman was a guest on Andy Cohen's Sirius XM talk show yesterday, and when asked about the controversy, she had a rather hilarious explanation as to how she got roped into it.
"Listen, I'm not trying to separate myself from this, but..." she began, with a laugh.
"You know, I did a movie with Gal, and actually Kristen Wiig was the one who contacted me, which I think Gal asked her to," Sarah explained. "And Kristen Wiig is the shit. So she emailed me and she goes, 'Well, we're all gonna sing "Imagine."'"
Sarah said she knew right off the bat that the concept was cringeworthy, and sent Kristen back a few questions about it.
"And I wrote her back and I go '"Imagine"? Really?’ And then I go, ‘Is it for a thing? What's the call to action?’ And she's so sweet, you know? I mean, she's so funny. She's also so sweet. And she goes, ‘It's just to, like, cheer people up.’"
"And then I couldn't say no, because one, it was the beginning of quarantine. Like there's no saying 'no' to anyone because you can't. There’s no excuse for it."
And Sarah admitted that she didn't want to "say no to Kristen Wiig," so instead, she just tried to make her little segment of the song silly:
So I tried to, like, make my part funny at least, you know, like I just feel like I have no currency unless I'm being funny, which is ironic considering this appearance.
"But, yeah, it's funny because she emailed me after and she was like, ‘I'm so sorry,'" Sarah revealed. "It was well-intentioned, but like, yeah, a little tone-deaf, but it really came from a nice place I think."
No politician can unify people in the way that the “Imagine” video seems to have united every single person against it.
And when Andy asked if she was surprised by the backlash, Sarah was rather blunt in her response: "No."
You can listen to Sarah's full conversation on Andy Cohen Live below:
