The Weeknd has opened up about the unusual origin of his stage name as he weighs whether to use his real name, Abel Tesfaye, more often while expanding beyond music.
Plenty of major artists perform under names far removed from the ones they were born with, but Tesfaye’s explanation for his own alias is especially memorable.
Discussing it on Reddit, he recalled leaving home as a teenager, writing, “I left home when I was about 17 dropped out of high school and convinced Lamar [XO crew member] to do the same lol.” He then added, “We grabbed our mattresses from our parents threw it in our friends van and left one weekend and never came back home.”
He also explained how that period led directly to the name, saying, “I hated my name at the time though so I tried it as a stage name. It sounded cool. I took out the ‘e’ because there was already a Canadian band named the weekend.”
Starting in 2023, Tesfaye began publicly considering retiring the stage name. In an interview with W Magazine, he said he was “going through a cathartic path” and was “getting ready to close The Weeknd chapter.” He explained that he wanted to “kill The Weeknd” while continuing to make music as Abel. In January 2025, he told Variety that he had outgrown the stage name, sharing that a “mental breakdown” following a 2022 incident where he lost his voice during a concert at SoFi Stadium in Los Angeles had prompted him to reconsider his career.
However, his plans appear to be shifting. Although he spent much of last year suggesting that Hurry Up Tomorrow could mark the end of The Weeknd era, his more recent comments point in a different direction. During a concert in Stockholm, Sweden on August 8, he reassured fans, “I’ll never disappear. I love this too much to ever disappear. I tested retirement a little bit, and I don’t like the way it feels. Imma be here forever with you.”
Exactly how that will look in the future is still unclear, particularly as Tesfaye continues to build a career in film, television and other creative work.
He released the album Hurry Up Tomorrow in January 2025, which marked the final chapter of a trilogy that began with 2020’s After Hours and continued with 2022’s Dawn FM. He has also stepped further into acting, including leading roles in the HBO psychological thriller The Idol and the feature film Hurry Up Tomorrow.
Speaking with Fader about that experience, he said, “I wanted to do my job as an actor.” He went on to explain, “So, make my piece with the idea, with the script, give whatever notes I have to give, but essentially it being [Shults’] film, where I give him the material, he makes the movie he wants to make, and I get to just focus on being an actor and not care about what’s going on behind the scenes.”
Tesfaye also praised director Trey Edward Shults for the way he worked on set, saying, “He made it easy for me. I always make this joke; Trey’s like a cat when he directs. … He really doesn’t want to get in the way of whatever is happening in front of the camera, and it was just a smoother process. I got to just focus on performing and doing what I do in front of the camera, and stay in it, just stay in in the role.”