Though Abel Tesfaye — a.k.a. The Weeknd — may possess a host of talents, nabbing four Grammys, pulling off a god-tier Super Bowl and singlehandedly salvaging the Toronto rap scene’s reputation (thanks, Drake!) it seems there’s one thing he can’t do: Read a room.


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Earlier this week, Tesfaye proved he somehow knows less about PR than the fictitious cult leader he’s set to play in his upcoming HBO series, The Idol, replying to a Rolling Stone article alleging production flew “off the rails” and devolved into “torture porn” after Euphoria‘s Sam Levinson stepped in as director with a  big “u mad bro?”



As the article’s shocking claims made the rounds — including one alleging Tesfaye chose to overhaul the series in part due to the show’s “feminine perspective — the artist shared a scathing clip on Twitter, one captioned with the snarky “.@RollingStone did we upset you?”


 “Rolling Stone? Aren’t they a little irrelevant?” Tesfaye says while sitting next to lead/notable neop baby Lily-Rose Depp in the scene, which has since garnered both 6.5 and 33.1 million views at the time of writing (get ur shit together, Twitter).


“Rolling Stone has 6 million followers on Instagram, half of them probably bots. And Jocelyn has 78 million followers, all real I’d assume. So she does a photo shoot, she tags them, they get her follower,” he continued, the camera periodically cutting back to the scene’s unlikely voice of reason, Dan Levy. “More money for Rolling Stone, nothing for Jocelyn.”



Considering the claims within the real-life exposé, it seems fans were less-than-thrilled with Tesfaye’s reaction, taking to Twitter to question his judgment, response and evidently the show’s horrendous acting.



Hey, at least it’s another great day to be Alexa Demie.