The Weeknd calls Rolling Stone‘s exposé on The Idol “ridiculous”
Abel Tesfaye also defends the Twitter callout he posted shortly after Rolling Stone's report on toxicity behind the scenes of the HBO series dropped
Aux News The Weeknd
As the Cannes premiere of HBO’s controversial series The Idol looms large, its creator Abel Tesfaye—also known by his stage name The Weeknd—has offered more comments on the explosive March Rolling Stone report that alleged discord and toxicity behind the scenes, not to mention a wildly expensive vision that one production team member said amounted to a “rape fantasy.”
Since Rolling Stone’s report dropped in March, Tesfaye—as well as his co-creator Sam Levinson and star Lily-Rose Depp—has staunchly defended the series, even goading Rolling Stone publicly on Twitter. In a new interview with Vanity Fair’s Dan Adler, Tesfaye is still singing the same tune, and again asserts that there’s a much less sordid explanation behind the series’ big budget, extensive reshoots (as he argues: “Shows get reshot every day”), and creative direction.
For what it’s worth, Tesfaye doesn’t seem to have any regrets about the Rolling Stone callout he posted on Twitter shortly after the report landed. In the clip—which Tesfaye shared alongside a caption tagging Rolling Stone and asking “Did we upset you?”—his The Idol character Tedros clicks his tongue at the idea of wasting Jocelyn’s time with an “irrelevant” Rolling Stone spread. According to Tesfaye, he simply chose to give back what he got.
“I thought the article was ridiculous,” Tesfaye says. “I wanted to give a ridiculous response to it.”
Tesfaye also directly addresses the statement that The Idol’s initial director, Amy Seimetz, was “set up to fail,” and that he and Levinson’s vision of the series diametrically opposed hers. (Levinson, who commented on the story via an email, chalked the eleventh-hour redirection up to necessity, sharing: “HBO had dedicated a tremendous amount of autonomy and financial resources to the show, and it wasn’t working.”)
“I actually really loved working with Amy,” Tesfaye says, “and I’m sure she’s reading all this being like, Why am I being thrown into this?” (The A.V. Club has reached out to representatives for Seimetz for comment.)
Finally, Tesfaye objects to Rolling Stone’s reports that rewrites on the series robbed Lily-Rose Depp’s character of whatever autonomy she initially had, adding up to that damning “rape fantasy” descriptor. For what it’s worth, Depp has also defended the show, previously calling Levinson “the best director” she’s “ever worked with.” Per Vanity Fair, Tesfaye describes Depp as the series’ “third creator.”
“I want to leave people the opportunity to be surprised,” Depp tells Vanity Fair. “I think it’s interesting that people have so much to say about the show already and they haven’t even seen it.”
The Idol lands on HBO on June 4.
24 Comments
Well, supposedly this entire show exists because Mr. Weeknd believes that his fans are such ardent followers of his that he could start a cult.
“I thought the article was ridiculous,” Tesfaye says. “I wanted to give a ridiculous response to it.”and he sure did by showing us his acting
via GIPHY
the explosive March Rolling Stone report
that alleged discord and toxicity behind the scenes, not to mention a
wildly expensive vision that one production team member said amounted to
a “rape fantasy.”
What do you mean by a “wildly expensive vision”?
“I think it’s interesting that people have so much to say about the show already and they haven’t even seen it.”Except for the crew person who was quoted, right? Ostensibly THEY have seen it.
There’s almost a 0% chance that a production crew member has seen the show
Some of “what people have to say” has been about the supposed rape fantasy. Which crew people were on set to see. She’s complaining about people talking shit when some of that shit-talk is coming from HER OWN SHOW. She and Tesfaye both are sounding like defensive asshole primadonnas.
You clearly know nothing about how actual sets are run.
Not disputing the whole “defensive asshole primadonna” thing nor the likelihood that, well, this whole thing is probably a massive sleazy pile of shit, but she’s pretty clearly talking about the people weighing in online who obviously haven’t seen it yet with that one.
“Showgirls without the self-awareness or lesbian text” seems certain to be as dumb as it sounds.
Said a person who objectively doesn’t matter.
Sick burn, stud. Are you just pointlessly trolling or are you actively engaged in defending the integrity of tacky rape fantasies today?
Dumb question from an idiot who – again – doesn’t matter.
Damn, this rape enthusiast is lonely af.
Dumb comment from a nobody.
I mean in all fairness, this shit was made:
After ALL THIS HYPE, it would be just great if this show was greeted with the same deafening, conspicuous *embarrassed silence* that the execrable “Bupkis” has been. That mortifying turd immediately sank without a trace – you know how bad it must be for the Pete-fankids to not even bother attempting to fluff it.
Bupkis appears to be reviewing pretty well, and ads for it are allllllll over the place.
Haven’t seen any reviews above “meh” (perhaps I’m not looking at the sites most inclined to enjoy it,) and if you’re still seeing that full a promo campaign weeks after it dropped, that confirms very starkly that it’s underperforming. I’m hardly surprised by that – its a standard req of Lorne’s Broadway Vid content on NBC/Universal/Peacock platforms.
Though this is on HBO, vs. Bupkis’s Peacock
Oy! He’s a chicken chaser he is!
I think The Weeknd writes some great music. That said, the song they released related to this show sucks and sounds like a huge misogynistic step backwards from his more evolved recent work (Future is also gross, which does not help). That sounds like what I am hearing about the show. Also:1. saying something is “ridiculous” isn’t the same as saying it is untrue2. I do not see where he specifically refutes the changes made to Depp’s character, maybe I am missing this part in one of the other articles3. the Cannes guy just lied about not knowing about Johnny Depp’s controversies and then made sure to pick this up, it sounds like crypto anti-metoo blurred lines bullshit
No one anywhere cares what you think about anything FYI.
It’s not like Rolling Stone constantly publishes false scoops or anything.