The Weeknd’s fate remains unclear ahead of Hurry Up Tomorrow

14 May 2025, 11:17 | Written by Lucy Niederman

(News)

(The Weeknd)

After teasing the end of his alter ego for over a year, The Weeknd, aka Abel Tesfaye, now says his next move might not be a funeral, but a rebirth.

For months, Abel Tesfaye has hinted that Hurry Up Tomorrow, his sixth studio album and the accompanying feature film, might mark the end of The Weeknd persona as we know him. However, in a recent interview with Entertainment Weekly, the artist left the door open for something less drastically final.

“It feels like it. I mean, I’ve kind of toyed with the idea in the past with albums,” Tesfaye said, speaking at CinemaCon alongside director Trey Edward Shults and co-star Jenna Ortega. “But it could also just be a rebirth. Who knows?” says the singer.

Along with the accompanying film hitting theaters on 16 May, Tesfaye stars as a fictional version of himself, an insomnia-troubled musician named Abel, who’s pulled into a surreal and dark psychological journey by a mysterious stranger named Anima (played by Jenna Ortega). Barry Keoghan also stars as his manager, Lee. Inspired in part by Tesfaye’s real-life experience when losing his voice mid-show in 2022, the project is both personal and symbolic, a possible goodbye for the persona that ultimately cultivated his rise to global fame.

Since debuting over a decade ago, The Weeknd has become one of the most successful pop stars, breaking chart records, headlining the Super Bowl, and earning Grammy wins. His previous record, Dawn FM, marked a conceptual shift, but Hurry Up Tomorrow takes it even further.

Whether this is the end of The Weeknd or just the beginning of a new era, Tesfaye isn’t giving a clear answer. And that seems to be the point. “It could also just be a rebirth,” he repeated. “Who knows?”