The Weeknd Is Ready to Retire His Persona After ‘Hurry Up Tomorrow’: ‘It Never Ends Until You End It’
"I just want to know what comes after," the hitmaker said of closing the chapter.
The Weeknd is ready for a change. As the release of new album Hurry Up Tomorrow approaches, the 34-year-old hitmaker is saying it will most likely be his last under the persona that made him a star.
In a new Variety cover story published Friday (Jan. 10), the artist — born Abel Tesfaye — addressed his plans to retire his stage name following the conclusion of his ongoing album trilogy, which began with 2020’s After Hours, continued with 2022’s Dawn FM and will end Jan. 24 with Hurry Up Tomorrow. The first LP debuted atop the Billboard 200 and spawned smash hit “Blinding Lights,” which spent four weeks at No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100, logged a record 57-week run in the Hot 100’s top 10 and was recently revealed as the No. 1 song on Billboard’s Top Hot 100 Songs of the 21st Century chart.
After hinting in the interview that the final trilogy installment would represent a broader chapter close, Tesfaye clarified that the chapter in question is “my existence as the Weeknd.”
“It’s a headspace I’ve gotta get into that I just don’t have any more desire for,” he said of his moniker. “You have a persona, but then you have the competition of it all. It becomes this rat race: more accolades, more success, more shows, more albums, more awards and more No. 1s. It never ends until you end it.”
The musician previously hinted that his days as The Weeknd were coming to a close in late December, when billboards reading “The End Is Near” started popping up in cities all over the world. In a May 2023 interview with W Magazine, Tesfaye also forewarned: “It’s getting to a place and a time where I’m getting ready to close the Weeknd chapter. I’ll still make music, maybe as Abel, maybe as The Weeknd. But I still want to kill The Weeknd.”
To Variety, the “Blinding Lights” singer echoed that he still plans on making music no matter what, emphasizing, “I don’t think I can stop doing that.” “But everything needs to feel like a challenge,” he added. “And for me right now, the Weeknd, whatever that is, it’s been mastered. No one’s gonna do the Weeknd better than me, and I’m not gonna do it better than what it is right now.”
Tesfaye added that his headline-making 2022 concert at SoFi Stadium — during which he had to stop and cancel midway through the show after losing his voice on stage — partially inspired his decision to hang up his Weeknd hat for good. “Part of me actually was thinking, ‘You lost your voice because it’s done,'” he told the publication. “You said what you had to say. Don’t overstay at the party — you can end it now and live a happy life … I just want to know what comes after.”
See Tesfaye on the cover of Variety below.
