Photo Illustration by Thomas Levinson/The Daily Beast/HBO/Getty
It’s hard to believe that HBO’s catastrophic series The Idol was promising at one point.
The premise of a pop star falling in love with a cult leader seemed fascinating. The Weeknd, aka Abel Tesfaye, was going to show us what he could do as an actor (not a lot, it turns out) following his Uncut Gems cameo. And with talented indie director Amy Seimetz at the helm, it seemed like Sam Levinson had finally allowed someone to swoop in and save him from his own shortcomings as an auteur.
But as we now know, Seimetz was reportedly ousted from the project by Levinson and Tesfaye over creative differences. And a shocking Rolling Stone exposé revealed a slew of behind-the-scenes issues, many of them related to Levinson’s penchant for depicting sexual violence.