Zendaya, Willow Smith, and Kiernan Shipka are catching heat over their admittedly cringe tribute to David Bowie.
On Saturday, W magazine posted a video of the young stars performing a cover of the late singer’s 1972 classic “Changes.” The video, directed by Lynn Hirschberg, was originally released in 2016, just two months after Bowie died at age 69. The outlet reshared the video on what would’ve been the late singer’s 75th birthday: “… watch as the stars deliver a heartfelt rendition of the legendary rocker’s hit song,” the caption read.
Though Zendaya, Smith, and Shipka likely had good intentions, their delivery of the song left some fans either unimpressed, amused, or down right offended.
“What on earth is this? 😬” one Instagram user wrote.
“I thought this was gonna be cute but instead it felt blasphemous,” another commented.
Some users said they were frustrated by the stars having to read the lyrics from a piece a paper, suggesting they weren’t true Bowie stans. “Why are they reading these iconic lyrics off a page!!??? If they don’t know them off by heart like any Bowie fan then 🤫”
“Why on earth would you give them a Bowie song when, obviously from watching this, they have no concept of what a Bowie song is??”
Others also compared the video to the infamous 2020 “Imagine” video featuring celebrities like Gal Gadot, Jimmy Fallon, Zoë Kravitz, Natalie Portman, Will Ferrell, Mark Ruffalo, and more.
“Ya’ll really didnt learn anything from that Gal Gadot ‘imagine’ video, huh?”
You can check out the W magazine video above.
