Kaia Gerber Reveals She Thought Gal Gadot's COVID-19 'Imagine' Video Was a Birthday Greeting

Supermodel Kaia Gerber recently appeared on the podcast Do Not Disturb to share the story behind her unexpected participation in Gal Gadot's widely circulated 2020 COVID-19 lockdown video. The video featured 25 celebrities, including Cara Delevingne, Sarah Silverman, Jimmy Fallon, Natalie Portman, and others, singing John Lennon's "Imagine" to uplift spirits during the pandemic. Gerber explained that she initially believed she was recording a private birthday message at the request of a friend of her roommate, not realizing it was part of a large-scale project led by Gadot.

Gerber recounted, "I saw the video and thought, ‘What a coincidence, I was just singing ‘Imagine’ in a birthday video,’ and then a minute into the clip, there I was." The video later became her first IMDb credit, a fact she found amusing but clarified she had no prior knowledge of the project's scope.

The video, while intended to inspire hope during lockdowns, received harsh criticism from major outlets like The New York Times, The Washington Post, and A.V. Club, labeling it tone-deaf and cringe-worthy. In 2022, Gadot publicly apologized for the video, acknowledging it was poorly timed and executed. Gerber's candid revelations shed light on the behind-the-scenes of a viral moment that sparked both global attention and controversy during the pandemic.