The Weeknd<\/a> first opened up about his thought process as he started to question his public persona, which cane when he lost his voice during a 2022 gig in Los Angeles.<\/p>\n\nHe told Variety at the time: “I knew that I really needed to sit the f*** down and figure out my life.<\/p>\n
\n\u201cTo understand what happened, face it, learn something new and start again.<\/p>\n
\n“I\u2019d had a kind of a mental breakdown, which is pretty much what [the album Hurry Up Tomorrow is] about.\u201d<\/p>\n
\nThe Blinding Lights hitmaker felt like he’d “said what he had to say”, and he didn’t want to “overstay at the party”.<\/p>\n
\nHe added: “When is the right time to leave, if not at your peak? Once you understand who I am too much, then it\u2019s time to pivot.\u201d<\/p>\n
\nHe found himself wanted to get out of the “headspace” around his stage name, which had become a “rat race” for “more accolades, more success, more shows, more albums, more awards and more Number Ones”.<\/p>\n
\nHowever, he explained at the time that he had no plans to actual quit music.<\/p>\n
\nHe said: \u201cI don\u2019t think I can stop doing that. But everything needs to feel like a challenge. And for me right now, the Weeknd, whatever that is, it\u2019s been mastered.”<\/p>\n
\nA few months later, in May 2025, he told PEOPLE magazine that he had “started” the process of retiring his moniker.<\/p>\n
\nHe said: “Yeah, it’s getting there. I mean, I’m on tour right now, so I can’t fully retire it.”<\/p>\n
\nAround the same time, he told The Hollywood Reporter: “We\u2019re brainstorming it right now. I feel like we don\u2019t have any definite answers, but I haven\u2019t dropped it yet because I\u2019m on tour, so I\u2019ve still gotta get out there and see the fans.\u201d<\/p>\n
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Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"11 August 2026 The Weeknd is no longer planning to retire his stage name. The Weeknd isn’t going to retire his stage name The 36-year-old star, whose real name is Abel Tesfaye, has backtracked on the idea of scrapping his persona, having first teased the idea well over a year ago. However, during a concert […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":256807,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[2177,61],"class_list":{"0":"post-256806","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-make-up","8":"tag-abel-tesfaye","9":"tag-the-weeknd"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/256806","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=256806"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/256806\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/256807"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=256806"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=256806"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=256806"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}