The Weeknd “grateful” for “The Idol” despite the “bumpy journey”

Blinding criticism hasn’t dimmed his light.

Raunchy HBO show “The Idol” is over, and co-creator and star Abel “The Weeknd” Tesfaye said he’s “grateful” — despite fans slamming the racy, five-episode first season for the “worst sex scenes in history.” 

“Continue to push the vision no matter how bumpy the journey,” Tesfaye, 33, told his fans in an Instagram post, seemingly referring to the show’s poor reception. 

Upon premiering at Cannes, “The Idol,” which Tesfaye created with Sam Levinson of “Euphoria” fame, was widely derided for its nudity, sex, and directionless plot. 

“‘The Idol,’ or 50 SHADES OF TESFAYE: A Pornhub-homepage odyssey starring Lily-Rose Depp’s areolas and The Weeknd’s greasy rat tail,” a critic for the Gray Lady sneered after a viewing.

“The show heavily exploits Lily … I hope she’s okay with it all because it comes off very exploitative,” another critic worried. 

The plot followed troubled pop princess Jocelyn (Lily-Rose Depp, 24, daughter of Johnny Depp), as she became involved in a weird and sex-filled relationship with self-help guru, club owner and cult leader Tedros (Tesfaye). 

The show regularly scandalized audiences, who cringed at its “nasty” sex scenes.

Levinson doubled down after “The Idol” got criticized, defending his work as “revolutionary,” while others noted that the show is actually a lot tamer than earlier efforts, such as “True Blood.”

“I think we live in a very sexualized world,” Levinson said.

Depp also defended the show, telling Vogue Australia, “We know that we’re making something provocative and we are not shying away from that. That’s something I knew I was setting out to do from the beginning. I was never interested in making something puritanical.

“When it comes to the nudity and the risqué nature of the role, that to me was really intentional. That was really important to me and something that I was excited about doing. I’m not scared of it… I think that’s an interesting thing to explore,” Depp told a reporter.

The show lost more than 100K viewers between episodes.

Even before it premiered, there were reports of trouble behind the scenes. 

An explosive feature from Rolling Stone detailed a chaotic environment behind the scenes, and sources from the production called the show “torture porn” and “rape fantasy.”

Later on, fans of pop star Selena Gomez expressed their displeasure over alleged parallels between Depp’s character and Gomez’ real life. Gomez and Tesfaye dated briefly in 2017.

The show ended on Sunday after just five episodes, when it was originally slated for six. 

However, despite rumors that it ended early because it was so poorly received, HBO confirmed to The Post that the initial episode count got changed from six to five before the show aired, due to shuffling of the creatives behind the scenes. Original director Amy Seimetz left the show, and Sam Levinson took over as showrunner). 

HBO has not yet announced whether “The Idol” is canceled or returning for a Season 2. However, on Twitter, the HBO PR account denied rumors that a decision had been reached.

“It is being misreported that a decision on a second season of The Idol has been determined. It has not,” they wrote.