Actor AnnaLynne McCord went viral on Thursday after posting a video on social media where she apologized to Russian President Vladimir Putin for not being his mother.
Now, the former star of last decade’s “90210” reboot is explaining why she chose to step into a serious geopolitical conflict with a message that if she had been his mother, he would have been loved so much he’d never think of invading sovereign nations like Ukraine.
The 34-year-old McCord told BuzzFeed that she herself could have become a tyrant if she’d had different life experiences.
“I know how I could easily have moved in the direction of becoming a dictator myself,” McCord said. “If certain circumstances of my life were different, were I a little less bent toward healing and more toward vindication, I could have been a darkly powerful person.”
In the now-viral 2-minute, 20-second video, McCord explains in partial rhyme that if Putin had been her child, “The world would have been warm / So much laughter and joy / And nothing would harm.”
She told BuzzFeed she was inspired to record the Putin poem after waking up “in anguish” over “the children of the war.” McCord said she sympathizes with “children who grow into adults and become people who do historically horrifying things” because she personally understands “early life trauma.”
Though the video was directed at Putin, McCord told BuzzFeed that her mission is raising awareness about the changes needed within “education systems” to “protect children and stop creating dictators and abusers and enslavers and rapists and bullies.”
BuzzFeed also revealed that McCord recorded a longer version of the video that she has only released on Vimeo, where she implores Putin to consider how a war could lead to more motherless children who grow up to be “cruel.”
You can see that version of the video below: