Singer Abel ‘The Weeknd’ Tesfaye has responded to a Rolling Stone report claiming the upcoming HBO series “The Idol,” which Tesfaye and Sam Levinson (“Euphoria”) created, has “gone wildly, disgustingly off the rails”.
The Weeknd took to Instagram to post a clip from the series . He tagged Rolling Stone in the clip and captioned it “Did we upset you?”.
In the clip, Dan Levy plays a character pitching Tesfaye and Lily-Rose Depp’s pop star character Jocelyn a photo shoot for the cover of Rolling Stone.
Tesfaye, who plays a modern-day cult leader named Tedros, says Jocelyn has thirteen times the number of followers that Rolling Stone has on Instagram and he sees no upside for her.
HBO has disputed Rolling Stone’s story which claims the show is in turmoil due to a poor working environment, last-minute script rewrites and budgetary issues.
In a statement to Variety they say: “The initial approach on the show and production of the early episodes, unfortunately, did not meet HBO standards so we chose to make a change. Throughout the process, the creative team has been committed to creating a safe, collaborative, and mutually respectful working environment, and last year, the team made creative changes they felt were in the best interest of both the production and the cast and crew.”
What is known is that director Amy Seimetz exited the show in April 2022 and the series was creatively overhauled with Levinson taking over as director. How much had to scrapped, re-written and reshot varies depending upon news sources.
The Rolling Stone report talks about a ‘disturbing’ scrapped scene involving an assault on Depp’s character, along with “divisions among Levinson’s inner circle” and a chaotic set with constant changes catching out unaware staff.
HBO so far has released several teaser trailers but hasn’t yet set a specific release date for the series.
