The Weeknd, given identify Abel Tesfaye, addresses the backlash to a controversial intercourse scene within the second episode of The Idol in a brand new interview with GQ printed Tuesday.
Many viewers have been deeply delay by the scene, which finds pop star Jocelyn (Lily-Rose Depp) masturbating blindfolded whereas Tesfaye’s character, Tedros the mysterious nightclub proprietor, watches impassively, saying issues like “I need to seize you by the ass whereas I suffocate you with my cock.”
“I’ll by no means see The Weeknd the identical after this,” one particular person declared.
For months, The Weeknd caught to his behavior of blithely dismissing any journalists or critics saying that The Idol, which he co-created with Euphoria czar Sam Levinson, was akin to a “rape fantasy that any poisonous man would have.”
“I’ve been judged for the reason that starting,” The Weeknd shrugged to Interview in April. “My stuff’s all the time sort of been provocative.”
Now, nevertheless, The Weeknd appears to be altering his technique. Relatively than sustaining the take-it-or-leave-it, we’re provocateurs vitality that he and Levinson have been favoring—“When my spouse learn me the [Rolling Stone] article, I checked out her and I stated, ‘I believe we’re about to have the largest present of the summer time,’” Levinson stated at Cannes—his GQ interview smacks of a person scrambling to clarify that he’s not a power-mad pervert, he’s simply taking part in one on TV.
“There’s nothing attractive about” the Episode 2 intercourse scene, The Weeknd insisted to GQ, persevering with, “once we use Fundamental Intuition as a reference, we’re utilizing Verhoeven. Verhoeven is the king of ‘90s satire thriller—sure, there’s moments of ‘attractive’ in his movies however there are different moments which might be very tacky and hilarious. Nonetheless you’re feeling watching that scene, whether or not it’s discomfort, otherwise you really feel gross, otherwise you really feel embarrassed for the characters. It’s all these feelings including as much as: this man is in method over his head, this example is one the place he’s not alleged to be right here.”
However, months in the past, a supply instructed Rolling Stone that The Weeknd and Levinson’s overhaul of the present was, partially, because of the “Blinding Lights” singer wanting “one present that was all about him.”
“Abel got here to us with a pitch,” Levinson instructed W Journal in Might. “He stated one thing that I’ll all the time bear in mind: ‘If I wished to start out a cult, I may.’”
“What he meant is that his followers have been so loyal and devoted that they’d comply with him anyplace,” Levinson added. “That was the germ of the thought for The Idol: what occurs when a pop star falls for the mistaken man and nobody speaks up.”
So which is it—is the Tedros character “method over his head,” as The Weeknd put it immediately to GQ; an individual with “nothing actually mysterious or hypnotizing about him?”
Or is he a determine, invented by The Weeknd and impressed by his personal persona, that’s so alluring, and completely in charge of his personal persuasive powers, {that a} susceptible lady can’t assist however to fall below his spell?
There’s nothing mistaken with conceiving a nasty man character that’s primarily based on your self—however in case you’ve determined to push the envelope by making a present that purports to not differentiate between applicable and inappropriate need, don’t immediately begin arguing that, no, your sex-charged, attractive present wasn’t alleged to be attractive in that one second.
It’s spineless, and there’s no such factor as a midway provocateur.