Photo credit: Twitter
Last week, Abel Tesfaye did just that after announcing plans to kill off his stage personality, The Weeknd.
The star has updated his social media accounts to reflect his birth name and not his stage name. Tesfaye said in a recent interview that the change is part of a larger plan to wipe out The Weeknd entirely. “I’m on a cathartic path right now,” the singer tells W magazine.
“I’m getting to a point and a time where I’m preparing to wrap up 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. Ultimately. I’m definitely trying to shed that skin and be reborn,” he continues, reflecting on the past and what the last song for The Weeknd could be.
“The album I’m working on right now is probably my last hooray as The Weeknd,” the singer continues. “It’s something I have to do. As The Weeknd, I’ve said all I can.” In the same interview, he spoke about his upcoming HBO series The Idol and how it was introduced to the network. Sam Levison speaks out and adds a detail about how the pop star introduced him to the show.
“Abel came to us with a pitch. He said something I’ll always remember: “If I wanted to start a cult, I could do it.” He meant that his fans were so loyal and devoted that they would follow him anywhere. That was the seed of the idea for The Idol: What happens when a pop star falls in love with the wrong person and no one says anything?
the idol will premiere June 4 on HBO after several rewrites and creative changes. According to Deadline, the show was revamped in April 2022 after Tesfaye was reportedly unhappy with the narrative’s focus on the female perspective. HBO commented on the changes.
“The original approach to the series and the production of the first few episodes didn’t meet HBO standards, so we decided to make a change,” said an HBO spokesperson. “Last year the team made creative changes that were in the best interests of the production and the cast and crew.”