#Jewel euphoria hbo tv

But I still had friends who were dealing with things, and I had to help them through it. It’s hard for me to speak on addiction because it’s not something I have dealt with directly. Just because it’s not happening to you doesn’t mean it’s not happening all the time, every day. Whether people like it or not, it’s real. I kind of accepted the fact that it would be polarizing. She added that she's not overtly concerned with some of the sex and drug use on the show: I don’t find it that shocking, to be honest. There’s something innocent and redeeming about her that reminds you that she’s a human first and an addict second.' Rue is a good person, she just doesn’t know it. As Zendaya told The New York Times of her character, 'I feel like she’s a version of myself with different choices and circumstances. In the show, 22-year-old Zendaya plays Rue, a high school student who gets out of rehab the summer before her junior year.

#Jewel euphoria hbo tv

'It may seem boundary-pushing, and the idea of putting on TV may be, but somebody lived them,' he told THR.Īnd while some of the graphic scenes will certainly enrage more conservative viewers, Euphoria does depict the very real horrors of addiction. 'It's a good insight into how hard it is to grow up in this time.'īloys also emphasized that the controversial content of the show was pulled from real life. 'There are going to be parents who are going to be totally fucking freaked out,' Levinson told THR. The show was created and written by Sam Levinson, who, according to THR, based most of the episodes on his own life and struggles with addiction. 'They have a responsibility,' Winter said.īut HBO is standing behind Euphoria, with Programming President Casey Bloys saying, 'It's not sensational to be sensational.' In an interview with Fox News, Parents Television Council President Tim Winter demanded that HBO pull the plug on the show. The Parents Television Council warned that 'HBO, with its new high school centered show Euphoria, appears to be overtly, intentionally, marketing extremely graphic adult content – sex, violence, profanity and drug use – to teens and preteens.' What made it to air is a trimmed-down version of the original shot, which included “like, 80 more” penises, he says. THR reports that one scene in the second episode shows 30 penises: The network also voiced concerns about a scene in the second episode featuring dozens of naked high school boys in what Levinson intended as a gender-bent homage to the famous Carrie locker room scene. There are also multiple instances of nudity throughout Euphoria's first episodes. The premiere episode also depicts a gruesome overdose and a sex scene involving choking. The scene shows the older man's erect penis (which is a prosthetic). The first episode alone shows one truly horrifying rape scene involving a young trans female character (played by 20-year-old Hunter Schafer) and an older man (played by 46-year-old Eric Dane). They reshot his parts in the pilot, including an intense sex scene with 21-year-old actress Sydney Sweeney, who says of the recasting, 'Let's just say I'm very glad that Algee is playing the character.' After a lengthy back-and-forth with producers, HBO stepped in and replaced Bradley with The Hate U Give's Algee Smith.

Details surrounding his exit are fiercely guarded, but sources say Bradley was uncomfortable shooting scenes that weren't in the original pilot script and suggested his character would experiment with homosexuality in future episodes. As THR reports: While shooting the pilot, actor Brian 'Astro' Bradley, 22, a former X Factor contestant and rapper signed to Nas' label, wanted out of the show. And HBO is standing by its new show-which absolutely does have a lot of sex and drugs-despite reports of controversy during production and outrage from a parents' group.Īccording to The Hollywood Reporter, one actor allegedly quit the show because the content was so intense. Starring Zendaya as a high school student who self-medicates with drugs and alcohol to numb her emotional pain, Euphoria is an unflinching look at teenage life that doesn't shy away from showing the complex world that Generation Z must navigate. Euphoria, the highly stylized teen drama from HBO, doesn't debut until this Sunday, but it is already starting to cause its fair share of controversy.