The Weeknd calls Rolling Stone's exposé on The Idol "ridiculous"

As the Cannes premiere of HBO’s controversial series The Idol looms large, its creator Abel Tesfaye—also known by his stage name The Weeknd—has offered more comments on the explosive March Rolling Stone report that alleged discord and toxicity behind the scenes, not to mention a wildly expensive vision that one production team member said amounted to a “rape fantasy.”

Since Rolling Stone’s report dropped in March, Tesfaye—as well as his co-creator Sam Levinson and star Lily-Rose Depp—has staunchly defended the series, even goading Rolling Stone publicly on Twitter. In a new interview with Vanity Fair’s Dan Adler, Tesfaye is still singing the same tune, and again asserts that there’s a much less sordid explanation behind the series’ big budget, extensive reshoots (as he argues: “Shows get reshot every day”), and creative direction.

For what it’s worth, Tesfaye doesn’t seem to have any regrets about the Rolling Stone callout he posted on Twitter shortly after the report landed. In the clip—which Tesfaye shared alongside a caption tagging Rolling Stone and asking “Did we upset you?”—his The Idol character Tedros clicks his tongue at the idea of wasting Jocelyn’s time with an “irrelevant” Rolling Stone spread. According to Tesfaye, he simply chose to give back what he got.

“I thought the article was ridiculous,” Tesfaye says. “I wanted to give a ridiculous response to it.”