Half of us are delivering food to the other half sitting home in pajamas
During the height of the COVID pandemic, a rhetoric of collective suffering rang hollow against the reality of a society divided by wealth and mobility. Bill Maher, speaking on his podcast 'Club Random,' turned his critique inward toward his own celebrity world, naming the contradiction between the 'we're all in it together' messaging and the lived experience of those who had no choice but to leave home and work. It is an old tension — between those who can afford solidarity as a posture and those for whom sacrifice is not a choice — made newly visible by crisis.
- Maher didn't spare his own class: he called out wealthy celebrities who preached shared sacrifice from vacation homes in Aspen and the Hamptons while delivery workers risked their health to keep them fed.
- The phrase 'we're all in it together' became a flashpoint — a well-meaning incantation that, to Maher, amounted to a lie told by the insulated to the exposed.
- The infamous celebrity 'Imagine' video crystallized the disconnect, with stars singing about a world without possessions from the comfort of their mansions — a moment Gal Gadot herself later admitted was 'in poor taste.'
- Maher's sardonic remedy — that the wealthy should take shifts driving for Grubhub — was absurd by design, using the impossibility of the image to expose the injustice of the arrangement.
- The critique lands not as a resolved argument but as an open wound: the pandemic forced a collision between the rhetoric of equality and the reality of class, and the question of whether anything changed remains unanswered.
Bill Maher used a casual conversation on his podcast 'Club Random' as a launching pad for something sharper. He and media executive Byron Allen had been talking about the pandemic-era exodus from cities — wealthy New Yorkers fleeing to second homes in Aspen and the Hamptons — when Maher pivoted to what had been bothering him about that entire period.
The target was the messaging. Every platform, every channel had repeated the same refrain throughout 2020 and 2021: 'We're all in it together.' Maher called it phoniness, and he didn't soften the language. One half of America, he argued, was delivering food to the other half — people who went out because rent was due, who took on risk because they had no alternative. The other half stayed home, posted about shared sacrifice on Instagram, and ordered another meal.
To expose the absurdity, Maher pushed the logic to its extreme: if the burden were truly shared, shouldn't the wealthy take turns driving for Grubhub? The suggestion was ridiculous — and that was the point. The ridiculousness revealed the lie.
The pandemic had produced one image that seemed to capture the disconnect perfectly: a video of celebrities including Gal Gadot, Will Ferrell, and Natalie Portman singing John Lennon's 'Imagine' — a song about a world without possessions — from their comfortable homes while millions lost jobs and loved ones. Years later, Gadot acknowledged it had been 'in poor taste.' The admission confirmed what many had felt immediately: that what was offered as solidarity had functioned as something closer to obliviousness.
Maher's critique was not new territory for him, but the pandemic had stripped away the usual ambiguity. The collision between the rhetoric of togetherness and the reality of inequality had been too direct, too visible to ignore. What lingers is not a resolution, but a question: whether those with the luxury of staying home ever came to understand what it meant to be the ones who couldn't.
Bill Maher sat down on his podcast "Club Random" and did what he does best: he called out a contradiction so obvious it had been hiding in plain sight. The subject was wealth, privilege, and the pandemic. The target was his own world—the celebrities and moguls who spent 2020 and 2021 telling America that everyone was suffering together, all in it as one, while they sat in their homes in the Hamptons or Aspen, ordering food delivered by people who had no choice but to work.
The conversation started innocuously enough. Maher and his guest, media executive Byron Allen, were discussing the superiority of houses over apartments—the luxury of not sharing walls with neighbors. Allen mentioned that New Yorkers had begun to agree with this preference once the pandemic hit, fleeing the city for vacation homes and second residences in places like Aspen and the Hamptons. It was a small observation that opened onto something larger.
Maher seized on it. What bothered him, he said, was the sheer phoniness of the messaging that had saturated television throughout the crisis. Every channel, every platform: "We're all in it together." The phrase had become a refrain, a kind of moral incantation. But it was a lie, he argued, and not even a subtle one. "No we're not, you fucking assholes, you fucking posers," he said, his frustration cutting through the usual comedy-podcast banter.
The real divide, as Maher saw it, was starkly material. One half of America was delivering food to the other half, who remained safely at home in their pajamas, posting inspirational messages about shared sacrifice on Instagram. The people doing the delivering had no such luxury. They went out because they had to. They took the risk because rent was due. Meanwhile, the people receiving the deliveries—the celebrities, the wealthy, the insulated—could afford to stay home indefinitely. They could afford to flee to second homes. They could afford to treat the pandemic as an inconvenience rather than an existential threat to their livelihood.
Maher pushed the logic further. If everyone was truly in it together, he suggested, then maybe the burden should be distributed. Maybe the wealthy should take turns working for Grubhub. Maybe the people sitting safely at home should spend some of their time doing the work that others were forced to do every single day. The idea was absurd on its face—which was precisely the point. The absurdity exposed the lie.
The pandemic had produced several moments that seemed to crystallize this disconnect. One in particular had become almost legendary in its tone-deafness: a video in which celebrities including Gal Gadot, Will Ferrell, Mark Ruffalo, Pedro Pascal, and Natalie Portman sang John Lennon's "Imagine." The song itself is a meditation on a world without possessions, without heaven, without the divisions that separate people. Coming from wealthy celebrities during a moment when millions were losing jobs and loved ones, the message landed differently than intended. Years later, Gadot herself acknowledged that the video had been "in poor taste"—a retrospective admission that what had seemed like solidarity at the time had actually been something closer to mockery.
Maher's critique was not new. He had spent years pointing out the disconnect between what liberal celebrities claimed to believe and how they actually lived. But the pandemic had made it impossible to ignore. The rhetoric of togetherness had collided with the reality of inequality so directly that even those delivering the rhetoric eventually had to acknowledge the collision. What remained was the question of whether anything would change—whether the people with the resources to stay home would ever truly understand what it meant to be the people who couldn't.
Notable Quotes
No we're not, you fucking assholes, you fucking posers—every time I turned on the TV, it was some version of 'We're all in it together'— Bill Maher
In retrospect, the video was in poor taste— Gal Gadot, reflecting on the "Imagine" video
The Hearth Conversation Another angle on the story
What bothered you most about the "we're all in it together" messaging?
It wasn't just that it was false. It was that it was demonstrably false in real time. You could see the contradiction every single day—the same people saying it were the ones who didn't have to go anywhere.
But couldn't someone argue that celebrities were also scared, also isolated, also suffering in their own way?
Sure, they were scared. But fear isn't the same as risk. And isolation in a mansion is not the same as isolation in a studio apartment while you're working three jobs. The pandemic didn't create the inequality—it just made it impossible to pretend it didn't exist.
The "Imagine" video seems almost quaint now. Did you think it was bad at the time?
I think a lot of people did, but they didn't say it out loud because you're not supposed to criticize celebrities for trying to do something positive. But positive intentions don't erase the reality of who's singing and who's listening.
What would genuine solidarity have looked like?
Honestly? Probably silence. Or at least acknowledging the actual gap instead of pretending it away. The worst part wasn't that they were privileged—it's that they used their privilege to lecture everyone else about shared sacrifice.