Given that its premiere, HBO’s The Idol has garnered both of those authentic followers and viewers who hate-enjoy the series starring Abel “The Weeknd” Tesfaye. While the clearly show may not be as critically acclaimed as Sam Levinson’s other HBO sequence, Euphoria, it is the talk of Twitter. Subjects like Tesfaye’s cringe-fueling soiled talk to Jennie from BLACKPINK’s villain twist can be noticed all around the feed, but one thing fans may perhaps not know is that one of The Idol filming places has a celeb connection.

As creator and one particular of the govt producers of The Idol, Tesfaye, who performs cult chief Tedros, contributed a great deal to the venture, even applying his Bel-Air house as Jocelyn’s mansion in the collection. In accordance to Architectural Digest, switching from first showrunner Amy Seimetz to putting Levinson in charge was a little bit expensive. To “fit Levinson’s program,” generation made a decision to help you save some cash by filming in The Weeknd’s $70 million mansion. It is the first place you see in Episode 1 of The Idol, when Jocelyn, played by Lily-Rose Depp, is having a photoshoot in her dwelling.

Choosing on using Tesfaye’s IRL mansion arrived after the singer invited Levinson around to examine the alterations that necessary to be produced concerning reshoots. Levinson explained to W, “If we have been heading to reshoot from the beginning, I realized it had to be for much less money. Sitting in Abel’s house, looking close to at the 40,000 square ft, I mentioned, ‘It’s stunning listed here — you just can’t invest in creation style like this. What if we shoot it right here?’” Right after confirming that the sequence had superior insurance coverage, Tesfaye agreed to allowing creation into his private room.

Within The Weeknd’s Bel-Air Mansion

A genuine-daily life pop-star’s mansion is the best place for a fictional just one. For instance, The Weeknd’s house has every little thing that Jocelyn would have, like an at-property new music studio. In Episode 2 of The Idol, Jocelyn even brags to new character Chloe that there are two swimming pools, which is also real. The Weeknd’s property has both of those an indoor pool as very well as an outside infinity pool with a waterfall.

The artwork that can be observed powering Jocelyn in the 1st shot of The Idol is the identical that is hanging in The Weeknd’s living area. Even the Prince image that Tedros opinions on in Episode 2 is The Weeknd’s real framed photograph of the “When Doves Cry” singer. It was as soon as hanging in his Beverly Hills penthouse condominium, and tends to make you wonder if the full Prince little bit that bonds Jocelyn and Tedros was extra into the script later on since of the image in Tesfaye’s house. It’s doable that other specifics in The Weeknd’s home will develop into plot factors in The Idol afterwards on this period. Even if they aren’t, it’ll just be exciting to get a glimpse into his household, like followers received to see Miley Cyrus’ mansion in her “Flowers” music video clip.

Another filming location coming up in the period also has a tie to The Weeknd. Conserving income once once more, The Idol utilised The Weeknd’s concert at SoFi Stadium in Los Angeles last September to film a scene where by Depp in character as Jocelyn gave a speech to the puzzled crowd.

Due to the fact Tesfaye’s character is the leader of a cult, it’s looking like Jocelyn’s mansion may well grow to be a homebase, which implies we’ll see a lot more of his Bel-Air property as the season goes on. A single currently unforgettable scene was when Tedros to start with visits, and he’s viewed creepily standing at Jocelyn’s gate. When questioned about this scene, The Weeknd shared with GQ that it was meant to be ominous, declaring, “Yeah, which is all intentional to heighten the camp of it all.” So, fundamentally The Idol is like an episode of MTV Cribs, but with more camp and cringe to appear.