‘The Idol’s Star and Creator Deny That the Pop Star Meltdown Featured in the Series Is a Reference to Britney Spears

The Idol, which is set to premiere on Max June 4, might become the biggest hit series of the summer, not necessarily because it’s a great show, but because of the curiosity and drama surrounding it.

The show, which just premiered this week at Cannes (and has since been mercilessly ridiculed by many of the critics who watched it) is about a pop star named Jocelyn, played by Lily-Rose Depp, who tries to reinvent herself after having a nervous breakdown with the help of Tedros, a club owner and manager played by The Weeknd.

The show’s first episode makes reference to Britney Spears, a pop star known for her own breakdown and subsequent mental health struggles, which may cause many to wonder whether Jocelyn is a stand-in for Spears herself.

At a press junket in Cannes, The Idol‘s co-creator, Sam Levinson, said that the inspiration for the show was more about the media coverage of Britney that inspired him, rather than Britney herself.

“[Britney]’s one of the greatest pop stars of all time,” Levinson said, per Entertainment Weekly. “We’re not trying to tell a story about any particular pop star. I think we’re looking more at how the world perceives pop stars, and the pressure that it puts on that individual. It’s a lot of pressure to constantly have to be on, and to have to be what everyone wishes you to be. I also think that it’s a lonely life.”

Levinson said that the reference to Spears was “more of a publicist [character]’s spinning, and trying to draw connections and correlations so that the press will write about it kindly.”

He continued, “We can all pretend that everyone is looking out for someone’s best interests, but I think fame really corrupts and I think it’s very easy to surround yourself with myth-makers who just… continue to say, ‘No, that was great. No, things are wonderful. Don’t worry. Don’t pay attention to that.’ And there’s something that can become very, very scary about that.”

Depp, who plays Jocelyn, added, “We’re not telling anyone else’s story. I think something we wanted to do is make her feel simultaneously like a pop star of our time, but one that is in her own plane. And we talked about a lot of other influences that are not pop star. We talked about Sharon Stone in Basic Instinct. We talked about Gene Tierney. All of these other incredible powerful women that had a lot of influence on Jocelyn as well.”

The moment that references Spears appears in the premiere episode of the show, and is not yet available to the public. You can watch it and see how this pop star story is told when The Idol premieres on Max next month.