The Weeknd is now officially known online by his real name
Abel Makkonen Tesfaye
Today his Twitter and Instagram have been updated with his birth name rather than his artist name.
Tesfaye told W Magazine,
I’m going through a cathartic path right now.
“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.”
He said his upcoming album might well be The Weeknd’s swansong,
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, Guinness announced that Tesfaye is the most popular musician on the planet with two new Guinness World Record titles.
- Most monthly listeners on Spotify, with 111.4 million •as of March 20
- First artist to reach 100 million monthly listeners
- The Weeknd currently has almost 30 million more monthly listeners than second-placed Miley Cyrus (82.4 million).
According to Guiness, Tesfaye is also ahead of Shakira (81.6 million), Ariana Grande (80.6 million), Taylor Swift (80.2 million), Rihanna (78.5 million), and his closest male challenger, Ed Sheeran (77.5 million).
Die For You went to number one on the Billboard Hot 100 – Tesfaye’s seventh time at the top spot.
The original Die for You was released in 2016 on his album Starboy.
(via CNN)
