AnnaLynne McCord explains her viral Vladimir Putin poem

Frazer Harrison/Getty AnnaLynne McCord

90210 and Nip/Tuck alum AnnaLynne McCord has opened up about the perplexing poem she shared in a video addressed to "Dear Mister President Vladimir Putin" on Thursday, as Russian forces invaded Ukraine.

"I know how I could easily have moved in the direction of becoming a dictator myself," McCord told BuzzFeed News when asked about the video, which has since gone viral. "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."

McCord also said she wanted to share the clip, in which she imagines herself as the Russian leader's mother and muses about the pain he must have experienced as a child, after waking up "in anguish" over "the children of the war." She empathizes with "children who grow into adults and become people who do historically horrifying things," she said, because she personally understands "early life trauma."

McCord added that she hopes to raise awareness about the changes needed within "education systems" to "protect children and stop creating dictators and abusers and enslavers and rapists and bullies," among other things.

The actress' poem — featuring lines like "If I was your mother, you would have been so loved, held in the arms of joyous light" — was met with bafflement and criticism Thursday, as fears of major war escalated. Twitter users compared the poem to the celebrity "Imagine" video that came about in the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, finding it similarly discomfiting.

McCord was one of several Hollywood figures to speak out about the Russian invasion, with Ukrainian stars such as Regina Spektor, Vera Farmiga, and Maksim Chmerkovskiy expressing their anger, shock, and dismay over the violence.

Related content:

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