“The Idol” gets more cringe each week.
The highly criticized HBO show — which was co-created by The Weeknd, “Euphoria” director Sam Levinson and Reza Fahim — continued to face backlash online after its third episode was released Sunday night.
In the episode, titled “Daybreak,” lead Lily-Rose Depp’s character, Jocelyn, and The Weeknd, who plays creepy club owner Tedros, start having sex in a Valentino dressing room.
However, in the middle of their — rather loud — hookup, Depp walks out, leaving The Weeknd’s character to finish the deed himself.
The graphic scene caught many already skeptical viewers off-guard as they took to social media to voice their opinions on the shocking sex scene.
“Dressing room sex scene is supposed to be funny, I think, but it’s the cringiest scene so far,” one user tweeted. “Then Tredros loudly jacking off alone? WTF is this episode?”
“why am I watching the idol it’s so bad ughhhhh why are they f—king in the Valentino store,” a second asked.
“Has The Weeknd ever had sex? Has ANYONE on the set of The Idol had sex?” a third chimed in. “Wtf was that scene in the dressing room in episode 3, it looked like two muppets banging it out.”
“I can’t imagine what’s going through Valentino’s investors after that recent episode of The Idol,” a third person pointed out.
Yet that wasn’t the only scene from Episode 3 that sent Twitter into a frenzy.
Elsewhere in the episode, Eli Roth’s character, Andrew Finkelstein, made an “appalling” joke about convicted pedophile Jeffrey Epstein.
During one scene, Finkelstein says the pop star is “making [him] have IBS,” adding, “I’m f–kin’ s–tting more blood than a kid at Epstein’s island.”
Epstein allegedly trafficked and then sexually abused young women and underage girls on his private Caribbean island before his death in 2019.
Immediately after the episode aired, social media users slammed the show’s creators for making child sex abuse victims the “punchline.”
“Okay, the Epstein’s Island comment was too far for me in the new episode of The Idol Let’s not joke about child trafficking,” one person tweeted.
“Sam Levinson on the Idol making a joke about kids in Epstein Island. What the actual f–k is wrong with you? It’s fucking disgusting that someone [thought] ‘this might be a good joke,’” another agreed.
And it appears a mix of the show’s crude jokes, Depp’s constant nudity and the “Save Your Tears” singer’s “comically bad” acting has led to a steep decline in viewership.
The drama, which has been bombarded with “rape fantasy” accusations, lost more than 100,000 viewers between its premiere and the second episode, according to PvNew.
While sources told Pvnew that “The Idol” was “never meant to be a long-running show,” HBO insiders say “the door is definitely still open” for a potential second season.
“The Idol” airs Sundays at 9 p.m. ET on HBO.
