Everything seemed cut and dry when HBO greenlit The Idol for production back in Nov. 2021. Here was a redemptive storyline about a pop superstar named Jocelyn (Lily-Rose Depp), her hunger for fame, and her twisted love story with self-help guru and seedy cult leader, Tedros, played by Abel “The Weeknd” Tesfaye.
However, after a series of delays, three teaser trailers, no definitive release date, and a complete overhaul in cast and crew, it’s now come to light that the onus falls on Sam Levinson, executive producer of Euphoria, and director of The Idol after HBO axed Amy Seimetz from the position back in April 2022. And not just because he scrapped nearly the entire project to rewrite it as his own.
After interviewing 13 members of the cast and crew, Cheyenne Roundtree at Rolling Stone reveals that the issue is with how Levinson has chosen to handle the project. Namely, his decision to change the story from a troubled pop star navigating a sleazy industry to a “degrading love story with a hollow message that some crew members describe as being offensive.”
“It was like, ‘What is this? What am I reading here?’” one source told Rolling Stone. “It was like sexual torture porn.”
“It was like any rape fantasy that any toxic man would have in the show,” said another production member. “And then the woman comes back for more because it makes her music better.”
“What I signed up for was a dark satire of fame and the fame model in the 21st century,” said a third source. “The things that we subject our talent and stars to, the forces that put people in the spotlight and how that can be manipulated in the post-Trump world… It went from satire to the thing it was satirizing.”
Billed by HBO as “The sleaziest love story in all of Hollywood,” The Idol was initially crafted as a satirical commentary on fame in the 21st century, with an implied critique of the real-life NXIVM cult that plagued Hollywood in the early to mid-2000s. With a cast as glamorous as its storyline, The Idol not only included Lilly-Rose Depp (yes, Johnny Depp’s daughter) as the main lead and Abel “The Weekend” Tesfaye as her love interest, but also supporting roles from BLACKPINK’s Jennie and Australian singer-songwriter Troye Sivan, as well as Dan Levy (Schitt’s Creek), among many others.
Now, The Idol is practically unrecognizable from what it was before Levinson took over. Even still, HBO calls it one of the network’s “most exciting and provocative original programs,” assuring naysayers via a statement via Rolling Stone that “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.”
A “safe, collaborative, and mutually respectful working environment” is one thing, but a toxic premise that perpetuates harmful stereotypes is another. Members of the crew have now criticized Levinson for feeling like he’s turning The Idol into “Euphoria Season Three with pop stars,” with one calling the experience “extremely, extremely frustrating.”
Furthermore, this isn’t the first time a show Levinson has spearheaded has come under fire for its problematic premise or unsafe environment. In 2022, news of tension between Levinson and Euphoria actress Barbie Ferreira hit the press, with subsequent complaints of Levinson’s fatphobic lens in storytelling.
YouTuber Kiera Breaugh accuses Levinson of using certain demographics as fodder for a vision one can only describe as ethically foggy. In a brilliantly well-argued commentary video made last year about the second season of Euphoria, she cites the director’s fetishization of young women, namely Sydney Sweeney’s character Cassie, as a main issue, calling his incessant and overt desire to show Sweeney’s character nude “uncomfortable.” Levinson’s misuse of his characters’ identities, such as Zendaya’s, is also another issue for Breaugh. “I have a problem with the way he uses Black characters to kind of tell a white man’s story.”
Breaugh goes on to cite Levinson’s on-set spat with Ferreira. She ends the video by saying, “I’m worried that in a few years, there’s gonna be some scandal and everyone’s gonna cancel him, and everyone’s gonna be like ‘oh my gosh, we should have known, I wish we caught the signs sooner. I think these are the signs.”
We Got This Covered reached out to Sam Levinson for comment. In response to our email, Mr. Levinson’s representation directed us to this TMZ article, which would appear to paint the production in a light more favorable to their client.
