Ricky Gervais Tears Into Celebrities Over Viral Imagine Video

"You can see in their eye – 'I could cry at the beauty of my personality, I'm just so beautiful for doing this'," the After Life star said.
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Ricky Gervais has shared his take on the viral video that showed an array of celebrities performing a cover of John Lennon’s Imagine, and we probably don’t need to tell you he was not impressed by it.

In March, Gal Gadot recruited a number of her famous pals including Kristen Wiig, Jamie Dornan, Natalie Portman and Cara Delevingne to each perform a line from the song in a bid to lift people’s spirits during lockdown.

However, the video proved to be divisive at best, with many claiming the stars had missed the mark with their efforts.

Among the video’s critics is Ricky, who admitted he wasn’t a fan during an interview on BBC Radio 5 Live. 

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Ricky Gervais
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That Imagine video, it’s not that bad, they’re probably very nice people,” he explained.

“It was an awful rendition, but they might have been doing it for good reasons, to help these normal nobodies.”

Ricky added: “But they’re going ‘My film’s coming up and I’m not on telly - I need to be in the public eye’, not all of them but some of them.

“You can see in their eye – ‘I could cry at the beauty of my personality, I’m just so beautiful for doing this’ and everyone sees that - we get it.”

Ricky called out celebrities for moaning about having to stay in their “mansions with swimming pools” during lockdown.

“After this is over I never want to hear people moaning about the welfare state again,” he said. “I never want to hear people moaning about nurses again. Or porters. These people are doing 14-hour shifts and not complaining. Wearing masks, and being left with sores, after risking their own health and their families’ health selflessly.

“But then I see someone complaining about being in a mansion with a swimming pool. And, you know, honestly, I just don’t want to hear it.”