[imagesource:hbo]

That wild series starring Johnny Depp’s daughter, Lily-Rose Depp, and Abel Makkonen Tesfaye from the band The Weeknd has been making headlines for being controversial even before it started streaming.

The Idol, “from the sick and twisted minds of Abel and Sam Levinson”, AKA the guy behind that dark teen drama Euphoria, released teaser trailers that already set the unhinged tone, with the one chanting “Lick it, spank it, drop it, camera, money, ah ah ah, more, more, more, ORGY” right off the bat.

You kind of already get the picture, and one can even imagine that being on the set of this series must have been completely crazy. In fact, even before debuting at Cannes Film Festival, the show was racking up a reputation for being terribly controversial, per Far Out Magazine.

As the star of HBO’s upcoming show, Lily-Rose told Entertainment Weekly that she would often have to “steer clear” of her fellow actor, Abel, as he would be so far in the zone:

She explained, “I don’t think anybody went full method — nobody lost their minds.”

“Well, sometimes when Abel would get — I don’t want to reveal too much about where Abel’s character goes, but when he would be in full Tedros mode sometimes, I would steer clear of him. I’d be like, ‘He’s in his zone right now.’”

This is following the exposé published by Rolling Stone, claiming that the show’s production went “wildly, disgustingly off the rails”:

Production members complained that the show became increasingly graphic and dark after the original director, Amy Seimetz, was replaced by Euphoria‘s Sam Levinson. “It went from satire to the thing it was satirizing,” one crew member explained.

Another source added the following about The Idol:

“It was like any rape fantasy that any toxic man would have in the show — and then the woman comes back for more because it makes her music better”.

However, Lily-Rose has called the strong backlash to the series “disheartening” at Cannes:

“I just wanna say that it’s always sad and disheartening to hear mean, false things about someone you care about, and it wasn’t my experience shooting the show”.

She added later on via Entertainment Weekly that “For something that does, of course, explore darker themes and has some pretty heavy emotional moments to it and everything, the vibe on set was quite lighthearted”:

She continued, “We’re all really good friends and we all are similar people and really understand each other. We were having a lot of laughs, listening to a lot of music, dancing around, and that kind of energy is what made the heavier moments easier and possible.”

The Idol is out already and is streaming on Showmax from today, June 5.

[source:faroutmagazine]