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He can sing, but is he Abel to act?
Lily-Rose Depp commended The Weeknd after the premiere of their new HBO series, “The Idol,” was met with criticism on Sunday.
“I love Abel so much,” Depp, 24, said of her co-star and the show’s executive producer, whose real name is Abel Tesfaye, during a breakdown of Episode 1 that aired post-premiere.
“He was able to melt into this role in a way that is really difficult for anybody to do.”
In the already-controversial show, Depp portrays a pop star named Jocelyn who tries to make a comeback after suffering a mental breakdown.
She becomes involved with Tedros (The Weekend), a club owner and leader of a modern-day cult similar to NXIVM.
While Depp’s performance was met with praise, with one viewer calling her acting “frighteningly good,” the show was dragged by viewers – with The Weeknd, 33, taking the brunt of the hate.
“LOL. How did The Idol make it to the airwaves? It’s comically bad,” writer Roxane Gay tweeted Sunday.
”Ejaculatory and vapid. They clearly think it’s subversive but it isn’t! It’s boring! Lily Rose Depp is interesting and it’s a shame she wasn’t given better material.”
Gay added, “I rarely say this because taste is subjective but don’t waste your time. Lol wow. Just so ridiculous. It takes effort to make a show this bad.”
“oh the idol is BAD bad i cannot believe this monstrosity is replacing ‘Succession’ sunday,” a netizen wrote.
“the idol was so bad it was funny 😭,” a third agreed.
Meanwhile, Variety dubbed The Weeknd’s acting skills “nonexistent.”
Last month, Depp was slammed for showing too much nudity in the first episode after the series premiered at the 2023 Cannes Film Festival.
“Rarely does a scene go by without the camera showing flashes of her breasts or ass,” the Hollywood Reporter wrote about the actress in a scathing review. “You start to wonder if this is building to anything, and by episode two it seems likely that it’s probably not.”
Meanwhile, writer Kyle Buchanan of The New York Times jabbed, “’The Idol,’ or 50 SHADES OF TESFAYE: A Pornhub-homepage odyssey starring Lily-Rose Depp’s areolas and The Weeknd’s greasy rat tail.”
Another deemed the show “straight-up pornographic.”
Yet audience members at the Cannes premiere seemed to take well to the show and reportedly applauded “The Idol” with a five-minute standing ovation.
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The series had already been marred in April when sources close to production told Rolling Stone that “The Idol” was filled with “torture porn” and “rape fantasy.” Others claimed the set was chaotic and toxic during filming.
But the daughter of Johnny Depp and Vanessa Paradis denied any issues behind the camera – stating that the show’s director, Sam Levinson (“Euphoria”), was amazing to work with.
In a statement to the Post, Lily-Rose said Levinson, 38, was “the best director I have ever worked with” for “so many reasons.”
“Never have I felt more supported or respected in a creative space, my input and opinions more valued. Working with Sam is a true collaboration in every way — it matters to him, more than anything, not only what his actors think about the work, but how we feel performing it,” she said.
“He hires people whose work he esteems and has always created an environment in which I felt seen, heard and appreciated.”
The Weeknd also hit back amid the backlash, posting a scene from “The Idol” to Instagram in which Tedros and Jocelyn agree that her posing for Rolling Stone would be a bad idea because the magazine is “irrelevant” and “past its prime.”
He added in the caption of the post, “@rollingstone did we upset you ?”
“The Idol,” which has been in the works since 2021, airs Sundays at 9 p.m. on HBO.
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