John Legend, Keith Urban, and Angélique Kidjo led a version of John Lennon and Yoko Ono’s utopian anthem “Imagine” at the Tokyo Olympics, which featured Legend, whose net worth is an estimated $75 million, belting out the line “imagine no possessions.”
The Opening Ceremony kicked off on Friday with several artists participating in a rendition of “Imagine” — which asks listeners to, ironically, imagine there are “no countries.” The Suginami Junior Chorus and Spanish musician Alejandro Sanz were also featured in the number.
Legend, an overtly leftist Hollywood activist, belted out the lyrics, “Imagine no possessions/I wonder if you can/No need for greed or hunger/A brotherhood of man/ Imagine all the people/ Sharing all the world.”
The multi-millionaire “All of Me” singer, who considered fleeing the U.S. because of former President Trump, is no stranger to the hypocrisy.
Last year, he teamed up with failed Democrat gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams for a “Rock the Runoff” get-out-the-vote concert, which featured tickets costing up to $25,000. The climate change hardliner, along with his wife Chrissy Teigen, also took a private jet to perform for Joe Biden’s inaugural event in January. That was not the first time the millionaires took such action.
In February 2020, Legend and Teigen flew 500 miles just for a Valentine’s Day date — an action that would be impossible if Legend lived up to the utopian lyrics he performed in his Olympic rendition of “Imagine.”
“IMAGINE. John and I were both artists and we were living together, so we inspired each other. The song ‘Imagine’ embodied what we believed together at the time,” Yoko Ono said on Friday, sharing a picture of the two from years ago.
“John and I met – he comes from the West and I come from the East – and still we are together. #IMAGINE50 #Olympics,” she added.
“Imagine” has been performed at the Olympics several times in the past.