HBO’s upcoming series The Idol is already proving to be one of the most talked about series of 2023, despite not having an actual premiere date. However, the Sam Levinson and Abel “The Weeknd” Tesfaye-created series seems to be proving rather chaotic and disastrous behind the scenes, not unlike the second season of Levinson’s teen drama, Euphoria.
Last April, the show was reported to go into an overhaul, with Levinson taking over as the show’s director, in place of Amy Seimetz, who was originally set to direct the series.
According to several anonymous sources, who spoke to Rolling Stone, Levinson ramped up the sexual content during the overhaul.
According to Rolling Stone:
“At various points, Levinson’s scripts contained disturbing sexual and physically violent scenes between [Lily Rose] Depp and Tesfaye’s characters, three sources familiar with the matter claim. In one draft episode, there allegedly was a scene where Tesfaye bashes in Depp’s face, and her character smiles and asks to be beaten more, giving Tesfaye an erection. (This scene was never shot, the source says.) Another proposed scenario was for Depp to carry an egg in her vagina and if she dropped or cracked the egg, Tesfaye’s character would refuse to “rape” her — which sent Depp’s character into a spiral, begging him to ‘rape’ her because she believed he was the key to her success. (This scene also was not filmed because production couldn’t find a way to realistically shoot the scene without having Depp physically insert the egg, another source explains.)”
Another source claimed that while The Idol was supposed to explore and satirize the dark side of 21st-century stardom, the show lost its original messaging amid the overhaul.
“It was a show about a woman who was finding herself sexually, turned into a show about a man who gets to abuse this woman and she loves it,” said the source.
At the time of writing, it is unclear which scenes will make it into the final show, as many of the sources say that scripts were being changed and rewritten daily. According to one source, Levinson had stopped turning in scripts to the higher-ups at HBO at one point during production.