For a display that hasn’t officially premiered, The Idol has really the buzz. The future HBO sequence, helmed by The Weeknd and Euphoria’s Sam Levinson, initial caught social media’s awareness with its ominous plot— an aspiring pop star falls in love with a brooding, however charismatic club operator and cult leader. Nonetheless, as teasers for the clearly show released this calendar year, drama ensued. All eyes shifted to the Rolling Stone, who documented a lot of controversial allegations versus the show’s output in March. The Weeknd (now rebranded to his actual title, Abel Tesfaye) shared his feelings on the make a difference that exact same month. Now, he’s doubling down on his response.

On May well 16, The Weeknd talked about the Rolling Stone report in a profile for Self-importance Fair’s June problem. “I believed the write-up was absurd. I needed to give a ridiculous response to it,” he claimed, referring to his cryptic tweet he posted in March as a dig to the story.

The RS report alleged the guiding-the-scenes generation of the exhibit had taken a grim convert. Sourcing 13 unnamed members of The Idol’s forged and crew, 1 supply alleged Sam Levinson added several intense sexual intercourse scenes that examine like “torture porn” to the script. As a end result, these additions allegedly brought on additional rewrites and reshoots. In other places, a further member specific the series’ storyline went from “a darkish satire of fame and the fame model” to “the factor it was satirizing.”

The report also claimed The Weeknd axed the unique variation of the display that was significantly less centered around his character, and that tensions rose with co-producer Amy Seimetz, who still left The Idol through its early generation process.

In reaction to these troubling claims, The Weeknd posted a scene from The Idol on Twitter. In the video, his character Tedros turns down a publicist (performed by Dan Levy) when he gives a Rolling Stone go over to Lily-Rose Depp’s pop star persona, Jocelyn. “Rolling Stone? Aren’t they a tiny irrelevant,” Tedros scoffs, additional insinuating the publication would experience far more advantages from a potential deal with than Jocelyn would. The Weeknd then captioned the shady tweet, “@RollingStone did we upset you?”

In another clap back, The Weeknd also skipped above his Rolling Stone shoutout lyric in “Heartless” in the course of his Coachella efficiency with Metro Boomin.

In the Vanity Honest interview, the Kiss Land singer cleared up the drama rumors concerning Seimetz. “I actually definitely liked working with Amy,” he explained, “and I’m positive she’s looking through all this being like, ‘Why am I remaining thrown into this?’” As for the constant reshoots, Vainness Honest noted that “logistical troubles with Seimetz’s agenda, output timelines,” and the singer’s “desire to not hurry his to start with show” was the trigger.

“Shows get reshot each and every day … What are you gonna do?” The Weeknd curtly claimed. “These are the trials and tribulations of it, and which is what the clearly show is about.”