That said, it might not matter much. Since it debuted in the summer of 2019 \u2013 its 26 episodes have stretched across a pandemic, multiple international wars and two Trump presidencies \u2013 Euphoria has become just as famous for its fictional stories of addiction and all-American depravity as it has its behind-the-scenes drama, whether it\u2019s accurately reported or entirely made up by gossips and TikTok teens. Are Zendaya and her co-star Sydney Sweeney<\/a> feuding? Is Euphoria luridly exploiting its young cast? Is Levinson purely bad-vibes or just woefully misunderstood? Season three \u2013 reportedly the show\u2019s last \u2013 has now arrived<\/a> amid a deluge of questions like this, with answers not exactly forthcoming. And with so much angst and fury flowing through its bloodstream, it\u2019ll be a bit of a relief when it finally concludes.<\/p>\n Perhaps it was always going to be this way. Euphoria started at an 11, and has only increased in volatility since. Think of it as a nightmarish stars-and-stripes Skins told from the perspective of Zendaya\u2019s Rue, an introspective, mentally ill teenager with a drug problem. Surrounding her in season one were a cast of seemingly thousands, all of whom were tussling with forms of self-abuse \u2013 Sweeney\u2019s Cassie submits herself to all kinds of sexual exploitation; Jacob Elordi\u2019s Nate is a carnally confused chaos demon; Barbie Ferreira\u2019s Kat a camgirl with body issues. Levinson may have been running through a laundry list of old Jerry Springer topics (Kids out of control! Porn-sick junkies! Trans teens and trans fetishists collide!) but he had created something undeniably alluring. Euphoria was a phenomenon, second only to Game of Thrones in HBO\u2019s most-watched rankings by the launch of its second season in 2022, and inhaled by an army of (for the most part) young people more than happy to give in to its sleazy charm. Designed to infuriate and horrify and turn on, Euphoria got the job done.<\/p>\n It was also ground zero for a new breed of parasocial television fandom, which has since come to define audience responses for everything from the smutty hockey soap Heated Rivalry to the medical drama The Pitt: viewers essentially came up with fanfic in their heads about Levinson and the show\u2019s stars, creating narratives that quickly spiralled out of control. Sweeney expressed her admiration for Levinson in an interview with The Independent<\/a> and the usefulness of their conversations about her many nude scenes on the show \u2013 but, moving the goalposts, some fans decided that Levinson shouldn\u2019t be writing so many nude scenes for Sweeney in the first place. Interviews by two of the show\u2019s guest stars (Minka Kelly and Chloe Cherry) in which they expressed personal discomfort with some of the nudity they were originally asked to perform, but which was softened by the time cameras rolled, only added further fuel to that fire. So too were reports of a rumoured fallout between Levinson and Ferreira (who announced her exit from the series after season two concluded), and an article in The Daily Beast<\/a> about the gruellingly long shooting hours for the show.<\/p>\n It always seemed a bit more nuanced than the internet declared it to be \u2013 if anyone who\u2019s worked on Euphoria has made actual complaints about Levinson, the public doesn\u2019t know about it, while Sweeney and Kelly both said that Levinson was immediately receptive to their ideas to cut back on the nudity initially asked of them. Cherry\u2019s discomfort was flagged by one of her co-stars, which sparked necessary questions about power dynamics on set (Cherry, unlike Sweeney or Kelly, was not an established actor when cast on the show). But it\u2019s also no smoking gun, either. It is true, though, that Levinson was ultimately granted enormous amounts of creative control over Euphoria, writing and directing every episode of the show\u2019s divisive second season. And this was despite claims in a 2024 Hollywood Reporter<\/a> piece that he was overspending on each episode and lacked the firm, decisive business sense of a more seasoned TV showrunner.<\/p>\n Four years have separated seasons two and three, and in that time Levinson has become even more of a question mark. The return of Euphoria was reportedly delayed due to its key cast being tied up elsewhere (Zendaya, Sweeney and Elordi are all now enormously in-demand movie stars), but also due to prolonged behind-the-scenes handwringing. That aforementioned Hollywood Reporter piece suggested that Levinson was so distracted by his involvement in The Idol \u2013 an eye-wateringly expensive vanity project for the pop star The Weeknd that crashed and burned upon release in 2023 \u2013 that Zendaya organised a meeting with HBO executives to vent her frustration. Further stories alleged that Zendaya, a producer on Euphoria, was unhappy with Levinson\u2019s suggestions for Rue\u2019s season three plotline. She wanted a now-sober Rue to find a job as a surrogate mother (?); he wanted Rue to start working as a private detective (??).<\/p>\n For such a famous person, Zendaya is a bit of a closed book \u2013 she gives little away about her politics, her creative choices, or her professional relationships, and has never directly commented on rumours of discord with Levinson. But even with that in mind it is clear that something has gone on between her and Levinson, with their once loudly symbiotic creative partnership (they collaborated on the pandemic-era Netflix film Malcolm & Marie, too) now largely evaporated. Zendaya has barely promoted Euphoria season three, its first mention on her Instagram arriving just 13 days before its launch (she has comparatively promoted the hell out of her A24 movie The Drama, and immediately devoted Insta-space to her forthcoming movies Dune: Part Three and Spider-Man: Brand New Day.) She briefly discussed the show during an appearance on Drew Barrymore\u2019s talk show last week, but through slightly vague platitudes about her gratitude for it.<\/p>\n And Levinson himself has been uncharacteristically quiet about his leading lady of late. Asked by The New York Times last week whether his relationship with Zendaya has changed over the course of the series, Levinson completely deflected the question: \u201cI can\u2019t help but root for everyone in this cast, especially when you\u2019re working with directors like [Christopher] Nolan and Denis [Villeneuve] and [Guillermo] del Toro,\u201d he said. \u201cJust across the board, it\u2019s really exciting.\u201d Riiight.<\/p>\n Levinson also seemed to deflect questions last week about the sudden resignation from the show of the British musician Labrinth, whose trippy, genre-hopping score had always lent Euphoria its dreamy edge. Despite HBO confirming in 2025 that he was returning to score season three \u2013 if sharing music duties with the newly hired Hans Zimmer \u2013 Labrinth posted to his Instagram in March: \u201cF*** COLUMBIA [Records]. DOUBLE F*** EUPHORIA. IM OUT\u201d [sic]. \u201cWe have meaningful relationships with like-minded people and discard them as soon as a bigger opportunity arrives,\u201d he added. \u201cWho the f*** said this is normal or OK?\u201d Asked by Rolling Stone<\/a> what happened, Levinson replied: \u201cI don\u2019t know. He\u2019s an incredible collaborator and someone who really built the foundation of the sound of Euphoria.\u201d Riiight.<\/p>\n Does Euphoria season three need to exist? It\u2019s debatable. The three episodes \u2013 of eight \u2013 supplied to journalists are arguably bleaker than anything Levinson has put his name to before, with Rue smuggling drugs in Mexico, Cassie pretending to be a sexy dog on OnlyFans, and Hunter Schafer\u2019s melancholy Jules working as a \u201csugar baby\u201d for a millionaire. Sigh. That Levinson has claimed season three is a tribute to cast member Angus Cloud, who died from a drug overdose shortly after filming his two-season role as sensitive dealer Fez on the show, feels more worrying than it does sweet \u2013 he\u2019s pledged that season three is about finding light and hope in darkness, but based on the content of these three episodes, it won\u2019t materialise quickly.<\/p>\n At least we can find solace in the fact that this will all be over in eight weeks, though. Euphoria had something magical about it in its early stages \u2013 a glum kind of ambience that resembled an America\u2019s Next Top Model photo challenge where the theme is soul-sucking misery (\u201cdepression, but make it fashion\u201d). But ultimately it burned too bright, swallowed whole by egos, gossip and incredibly melodramatic teenagers on the internet. It became exhausting to watch, and even more exhausting to hear about. Maybe Zendaya isn\u2019t distancing herself from it because of a feud with Levinson. Maybe she\u2019s just distancing herself from it because who in their right mind wouldn\u2019t?<\/p>\n \u2018Euphoria\u2019 is streaming on HBO in the US and HBO Max in the UK<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Your support helps us to tell the story From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":528235,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[96,391,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-528234","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tv","tag-entertainment","tag-tv","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/528234","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=528234"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/528234\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/528235"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=528234"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=528234"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=528234"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"Sydney](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/1776071177_945_sydney-sweeney.jpg\")
Sydney Sweeney in season three of HBO\u2019s \u2018Euphoria\u2019 (HBO)<\/p>\n![\"Zendaya](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/zendaya.jpeg\")
Zendaya hits the open road in season three of \u2018Euphoria\u2019 (HBO)<\/p>\n![\"Sydney](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/GettyImages-2270306455.jpeg\")
Sydney Sweeney, Sam Levinson and Maude Apatow at the LA premiere of \u2018Euphoria\u2019 last week (Getty Images)<\/p>\n