Lily-Rose Depp defends Sam Levinson amid backlash over 'The Idol'

Lily-Rose Depp will always be on Sam Levinson's side.

After the co-creator of The Idol faced criticism in 2023 for the contentious HBO series in which Depp played Jocelyn alongside Abel "The Weeknd" Tesfaye's Tedros, the actress is still standing up for him. Zendaya starred in Euphoria, which Levinson also produced.

“I think the thing that sucked about that was to have people talking shit about Sam [Levinson], who is a great friend of mine and somebody that I consider family,” she recently told host Josh Horowitz on the Happy Sad Confused podcast.

“I’m super close with him and Ashley [Levinson] — his wife who’s a producer on the show — and they are such wonderful people, so incredible, so kind, and really kind of took me under their wing in a way.”

The Nosferatu star continued, “The only thing that was upsetting about that whole time period was people talking negatively about [Sam] because the things that they said about him, particularly, as a filmmaker, just couldn’t be further from the truth than from, at least, my experience working with him. So that sucks. You just never want to hear people talking shit about your friend.”

In The Idol, Depp's struggling pop singer character, Tedros, a nightclub owner and contemporary cult leader, enters a complicated romance. After just one season, the HBO series was cancelled.

They "always knew it was going to be controversial," Depp added, adding that she's "interested in that kind of work," even though she loves her character and the series.

“People are always gonna make their own opinions of things, and so you just have to be steadfast in your conviction of, like, ‘I know why I’m doing this,’ and I know why I did that,” the Voyagers actress explained.

“That was a period in my life where I feel like I learned so much, I was pushed so far out of my comfort zone, in the most beautiful way, and it gave me so much growth that I will always look back on that as one of the most special times of my life.”

Depp added, “I think we were also, like, pushing society’s buttons intentionally a little bit, in a way, and of course, it was received in the way that it was, but it’s OK. … It’s beautiful and I wouldn’t have changed anything about it.”