Canadian pop star The Weeknd says he will no longer go by The Weeknd, instead reverting to his birth name, Abel Tesfaye, on his social media accounts.
The name change came after the Grammy-winning artist revealed to W Magazine that he wanted to “kill The Weeknd.”
“I’m going through a cathartic path right now,” he said. “It’s getting to a place and time where I’m getting ready to close The Weeknd chapter.”
“As the Weeknd, I’ve said everything I can say.”
Tesfaye, 33, became famous after he uploaded songs to YouTube in 2010 and Canadian rapper Drake posted them to his personal blog, launching his professional career.
As of March, Tesfaye had 111.4 million monthly listeners on Spotify.
Tesfaye said the end of The Weeknd has been coming over the past few months.
He told Variety that he cut short a concert in Los Angeles in September because he lost his voice and “forgot how to sing.”
“I don’t know what just happened… but I just lost my voice,” the singer told the crowd at the concert. “This is killing me, I don’t want to stop the show but I can’t give you the concert I want to give you right now. I’m gonna make sure everybody’s good — you’ll get your money back — I’ll do a show real soon for you guys. But I wanted to come out and personally apologize.”
He said his role in “The Idol,” an upcoming HBO series, could have been responsible for his lost voice.
“I had to take off the Weeknd outfit, put on Tedros’s (his character in “The Idol”) wig, shoot with Jocelyn, then go back to being the Weeknd,” the singer said. “It was tough to go from one head to another. Then, after the concert, I lost my voice. No voice came out at all. That’s never happened before.
“My theory is that I forgot how to sing because I was playing Tedros, a character who doesn’t know how to sing,” he added. “I may be looking too deeply into this, but it was terrifying. As the Weeknd, I’ve never skipped a concert. I’ve performed with the flu. I’ll die on that stage. But there was something very complicated going on with my mind at that moment.”
Check out these memorable photos of Abel Tesfaye, best known as The Weeknd, through the years.
2012: Singer Abel Tesfaye, aka The Weeknd, performs onstage during day 3 of the 2012 Coachella Valley Music & Arts Festival at the Empire Polo Field on April 15, 2012, in Indio, California.
2013: The Weeknd attends the 2013 MTV Video Music Awards at the Barclays Center on August 25, 2013, in the Brooklyn borough of New York City.
2014: Recording artists Ariana Grande (left) and The Weeknd perform onstage at the 2014 American Music Awards at Nokia Theatre L.A. Live on November 23, 2014, in Los Angeles.
2015: Recording artist The Weeknd, winner of Favorite Soul/R&B Male Artist and Favorite Soul/R&B Album, poses in the press room during the 2015 American Music Awards at Microsoft Theater on November 22, 2015, in Los Angeles.
2016: Recording artist The Weeknd attends the 88th annual Academy Awards at Hollywood & Highland Center on February 28, 2016, in Hollywood, California.
2017: Selena Gomez and the Weeknd attend the "Rei Kawakubo/Comme des Garcons: Art of the In-Between" Costume Institute Gala at Metropolitan Museum of Art on May 1, 2017, in New York City.
2018: Singer The Weeknd and model Bella Hadid attend Heidi Klum’s 19th annual Halloween Party Sponsored by SVEDKA Vodka and Party City at Lavo NYC on October 31, 2018, in New York City.
2019: The Weeknd at the premiere of A24’s "Uncut Gems" at The Dome at Arclight Hollywood on December 11, 2019, in Hollywood, California.
2020: In this image released on November 22, The Weeknd speaks onstage for the 2020 American Music Awards at Microsoft Theater on November 22, 2020, in Los Angeles.
2021: The Weeknd performs during the Pepsi Super Bowl LV Halftime Show at Raymond James Stadium on February 7, 2021, in Tampa, Florida.
2021: The Weeknd attends the U.N. World Food Programme as it welcomes The Weeknd as a Goodwill Ambassador on October 7, 2021, in West Hollywood, California.
2022: The Weeknd performs on the Coachella stage during the 2022 Coachella Valley Music And Arts Festival on April 24, 2022, in Indio, California.
