Canadian musician The Weeknd, born Abel Makkonen Tesfaye, has officially changed his social media handles to display his birth name instead of his artist name. This move is part of his wider plan to "kill The Weeknd," as he revealed in a recent interview with W Magazine. "I'm going through a cathartic path right now," he said. "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. And I will. Eventually. I'm definitely trying to shed that skin and be reborn."
Tesfaye also shared that his upcoming album might be The Weeknd's final chapter, stating, "The album I'm working on now is probably my last hurrah as The Weeknd. This is something that I have to do. As The Weeknd, I've said everything I can say."
In March, The Weeknd broke two Guinness World Records titles, being statistically the most popular musician on the planet. He became the artist with the most monthly listeners on Spotify, with 111.4 million as of March 20, and the first artist to reach 100 million monthly listeners. A remix of his song "Die for You," featuring Ariana Grande, went viral on TikTok, contributing to a surge in listens and reaching number one on the Billboard Hot 100, marking The Weeknd's seventh time at the top spot. The original version of "Die for You" was released in 2016 on his album "Starboy."
Whether Tesfaye will continue to make music as The Weeknd or solely as Abel remains to be seen, but fans eagerly anticipate his upcoming album as the artist enters a new phase of his career.