The Weeknd’s Controversial ‘The Idol’ TV Series Will Make Its Debut At The 2023 Cannes Film Festival

It’s been almost two years since Variety broke the news that The Weeknd and Sam Levinson were developing a drama for HBO. There was serious doubt whether The Idol would ever actually premiere on HBO after Rolling Stone published a troubling report on March 1 about the workplace culture on the set.

Today, April 13, the lineup for the 2023 Cannes Film Festival was revealed on its official website, and The Idol is slated to premiere in the Out Of Competition category alongside James Mangold’s Indiana Jones And The Dial Of Destiny, Kim Jee-woon’s Cobweb, and Martin Scorsese’s Killers Of The Flower Moon. The 2023 Cannes Film Festival will be held from May 16 to May 27.

“HERE WE GO,” The Weeknd tweeted.

Yesterday, April 12, The Weeknd teased The Idol Vol. 1 with a tweet showing him in the studio listening to swelling orchestral music. “THE IDOL VOL. 1 [CD emoji] coming soon (double fantasy & jealous guy just a taste,” he wrote.

According to IMDb, The Idol follows “a self-help guru and leader of a modern-day cult [The Weeknd] enters a complicated relationship with a rising pop idol [Lily-Rose Depp].”

The Weeknd tweeted a clip from the series in response to Rolling Stone‘s bombshell report, which, among many things, alleged that working on The Idol was “a sh*tshow” and “Levinson’s scripts contained disturbing sexual and physically violent scenes between Depp and [The Weeknd]’s character.”

Watch that clip below, or watch a teaser trailer above.