The Idol premiered its first two episodes at the 2023 Cannes Film Festival, receiving a five-minute standing ovation that left its co-creator and director, Sam Levinson, in tears. Despite the praise, however, the upcoming HBO popstar drama series has been deemed controversial, to say the least.

Created by Levinson, Reza Fahim, and Abel “The Weekend” Tesfaye, The Idol stars Lily-Rose Depp as a Britney Spears/late 80s Madonna-like mega-famous popstar named Jocelyn, who is in the midst of a serious mental breakdown after suffering a recent loss. While in her vulnerable state, Jocelyn meets and is seduced by charismatic cult leader Tedros, played by Tesfaye, who decides to take the young starlet under his wing.

What follows is a sequence of manipulation and eroticism, including revenge porn photos, Hollywood sycophants, puppetmaster-style scam artists, 50 Shades of Grey­-level BDSM, and much more, that exemplifies how the music industry views young female artists and allows the show’s viewers to also participate in their predatory voyeurism. The show’s sexual content may be relatively tame by the prestigious film festival’s standards, but many believe its raunchy intrigue may be too much for an American viewership.

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During a press conference, Levinson, 38, commented on allegations of a toxic work environment and defended the show’s boundary-pushing and transgressive level of nudity and sex scenes, which sources have described as being “sexual torture porn.”

“When my wife read me the article,” Levinson recalled, referring to the Rolling Stone story that first reported on The Idol’s chaotic and tense set atmosphere, last-minute script changes and other production issues. “I looked at her and I said, ‘I think we’re about to have the biggest show of the summer.’”

“We know we’re making a show that is provocative. It’s not lost on us,” he said, before adding that the toxic work environment claims “felt completely foreign to me. My only slight grievance is they intentionally omitted anything that didn’t fit their narrative. We’ve seen a lot of that recently.”

Depp, 23, also chimed in to defend the Euphoria director against the accusations, saying “It’s always a little sad and disheartening to see mean, false things said about someone you care about. It wasn’t reflective at all of my experience.” When commenting on the level of graphic imagery her character is involved in, Depp explained that “the occasional bareness of the character physically mirrors the bareness we get to see emotionally.”

“We live in a very sexualized world. Especially in the States, the influence of pornography is strong in the psyche of young people. We see this in pop music,” Levinson said in a similar vein. “When you have a character who has a strong sense of self and a strong sexual self, you end up underestimating her.”

Tesfaye, 33, revealed that he and Levinson were actively aiming to “create something special, something fun, to make people laugh and piss some people off.”

“I wanted to make a dark, twisted fantasy about the music industry,” the Canadian singer said of his TV acting debut. “To take everything I know about it and heighten it.”

The Idol is set to release on June 4 on HBO.

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