The Weeknd's Show 'The Idol' Blasted by Critics

After its premiere at the prestigious Cannes Film Festival in France, The Idol — the controversial new HBO series from The Weeknd and Euphoria's Sam Levinson — is facing backlash from critics and fans alike.

The series, which stars Lily-Rose Depp, The Weeknd (Abel Tesfaye), Troye Sivan, Blackpink's Jennie and many more familiar faces, has already faced a heavy wave of controversy after a Rolling Stone report called it "torture porn."

The report featured 13 sources who detailed an allegedly toxic set and some disturbing directions the show was reportedly taking, such as Levinson's alleged goal to outdo the graphic nudity and sexual content on his hit show Euphoria.

Now, it seems the early reports were right, as one critic blasted the show for being a "Pornhub-homepage odyssey starring Lily-Rose Depp’s areolas and The Weeknd’s greasy rat tail."

On Rotten Tomatoes, the forthcoming series has earned a dismal 14 percent as of publishing.

"In short, it’s crude, gross, and sexist," one Rotten Tomatoes reviewer wrote.

Someone else noted that the show tries "too hard" to be "transgressive," making it "ultimately regressive," while another person commented that the "script seems calculated to fool audiences into thinking they’re observing how Hollywood operates, when so much of it amounts to tawdry clichés."

Rolling Stone even declared that the show is "way worse than you've heard."

Meanwhile, a reviewer for The Telegraph gave the show one out of five stars. "Even the music is dreadful," he wrote on Rotten Tomatoes.

The same reviewer also called The Idol "misogynistic drivel" on Twitter.

Aside from critics, who overwhelmingly seem to hate the show, people on Twitter appear just as repulsed by the series' behind-the-scenes controversies and exploitative content.

"The way they just stripped the original script from The Idol... and it was going to be directed by a woman and it was supposed to be uplifting but Sam Levinson and Abel turned it into a porn torturing fantasy... I feel sick seeing these reviews. They can have that one," one person tweeted.

"Anyone blaming Jennie or Lily or any other women involved in The Idol that were clearly exploited instead of the men who literally made the show is absolutely not right in the head," another wrote.

"The Idol is what happens when you let a man with a porn addiction direct a TV show," someone else alleged on Twitter.

"The Idol reviews make me sad [because] all of them say that there's a good story there when everything isn't focused on sex," another person tweeted.

See more reactions to The Idol, which premieres June 4, below: