The Idol: Lily-Rose Depp defends “comfortable” nudity amid controversy

Lily-Rose Depp has defended the graphic nudity found in Max’s new provocative show The Idol.

It’s no secret that Max‘s new drama, The Idol, has been plagued with quite a bit of scandal before its June 4 premiere date. Between accusations of misogyny, complete script rewrites, and crew members quitting, The Idol had a lot going against from the start.

The Idol follows Jocelyn, a pop star trying to climb her way back to the top of Hollywood after suffering a mental breakdown. On her quest to regain her stardom, she meets Tedros, a club manager and cult leader who wants to use her to further his plans.

One of the biggest criticism against the show, especially when the first three episodes were shown at the Cannes Film Festival, was that the show used an unnecessary amount of nudity to move the thin plot along. But, one of the show’s stars, and center around most of the nudity, has spoken in defense of the show using it.

Lily-Rose Depp defends Idol’s use of graphic nudity

In her review of The Idol for The Hollywood Reporter, critic Lovia Gyarkye explained that “[the show] puts a metaphorical hand up at incoming haters [and says] Sex sells, and [they] revel in that.”

The moment Gyarkye was referring to was one in which a label executive is arguing with Jocelyn’s creative director, who’s against her baring her breast for the album cover shoot and she tells him to “stop cockblocking America.” In Gyarkye’s opinion, The Idol was using nudity for shock value instead of further the development of its characters and plot.

However, a New York Times interview with Abel Tesfaye, Lily-Rose Depp and Sam Levinson revealed that the Depp, the show’s leading star, felt “comfortable” doing nude scenes in the Idol, which is incredibly interesting as most of the nude scenes revolve around her.

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Depp told the Times: “There are many women who have felt exploited by the nudity they’ve done and have thought, ‘I didn’t feel great about that.’ But, I’m comfortable performing in that way, I enjoy it. It informed the character. In the conversation around the risqué aspects, there’s the implication that it’s something being consistently imposed upon women. Obviously, that has been true a lot historically.”

Levinson, the co-creator, writer, and director of the show, chimed in to say that Jocelyn’s perpetual nudity added to the audience’s perception that she’s a victim, stating: “I believe people will underestimate Jocelyn as a character because of how exposed she is.”

This view of a young woman’s sexuality through the eyes of an older man is a bit worrisome to fans as The Idol’s original director, Amy Seimetz, allegedly left the project due to Levinson and Tesfaye, the show’s co-writer and creator, drastically changing the vision of the show as it was heading too much into a “female perspective.”

But, if the show’s leading woman feels comfortable with the nudity she did on set, no one has the right to tell her that her feelings are incorrect. However, fans can continue to criticize Levinson for his need to have excessive nude scenes in his shows, something they have been doing since Levinson’s other project, Euphoria, debuted in 2019.

 The Idol Episode 1 dropped on June 4. Find out more about the show here, check out reviews here, and learn a bit more about the controversy here.