(KTLA) — The Weeknd is apparently “Six Feet Under.”
A week after announcing plans to rid himself of the famous stage name, Abel Tesfaye has begun using his birth name on social media.
While his Instagram and Twitter handles still say The Weeknd, he has Abel Tesfaye prominently typed out as the display name.
In a recent interview with W Magazine, the “Blinding Lights” singer revealed he wanted to “kill The Weeknd.”
“It’s getting to a place and a time where I’m getting ready to close The Weeknd chapter,” he told the magazine. “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.”
That change comes as he’s wrapped up filming the highly anticipated HBO series “The Idol,” where he stars alongside Lily-Rose Depp. The Toronto native plays the character Tedros, the self-help guru and love interest of Depp’s character Jocelyn.
By playing Tedros in the series while also going on tour as The Weeknd for his After Hours til Dawn Tour, the superstar experienced what he called a “kind of breakdown.”
He basically said this caused him to lose his voice that fateful night in September 2022 at SoFi Stadium. He had to reschedule the show after performing just a few songs.
“My theory is that I forgot how to sing because I was playing Tedros, a character who doesn’t know how to sing. I may be looking too deeply into this, but it was terrifying. As The Weeknd, I’ve never skipped a concert,” he explained. “I’ve performed with the flu. I’ll die on that stage. But there was something very complicated going on with my mind at that moment.”
But before you start calling out for Tesfaye, he does have one more album on the way under the name “The Weeknd.”