Age, Biography and Wiki
The Weeknd was born in Toronto, Canada, to Ethiopian immigrant parents. His early life was marked by hardship, and he eventually dropped out of high school. He adopted his stage name by combining the word "weekend," omitting the "e" as another artist already owned the name on Myspace. His discography is widely celebrated for its originality and eccentric style, and he has set records on the Billboard Hot R&B Songs chart, with three tracks simultaneously occupying the top three positions.
| Occupation | Performance Artist |
|---|---|
| Date of Birth | 16 February 1990 |
| Age | 35 Years |
| Birth Place | Toronto, Ontario, Canada |
| Horoscope | Aquarius |
| Country | Canada |
Height, Weight & Measurements
There are slight discrepancies in reports about The Weeknd’s height, with some sources stating he is 5’8” (1.73 m), while others claim he is 5’6.5” (about 1.69 m). He weighs approximately 75 kg (about 165 lbs) and maintains a fit physique, often attributed to daily cardio sessions. He is known for his stylish appearance, typically favoring black clothes and a well-groomed stubble, with a history of changing hairstyles, including dreadlocks.
Abel Makkonen Tesfaye (born February 16, 1990), known professionally as the Weeknd, is a Canadian singer-songwriter, record producer, and actor. He is best known for adding pop, electronic and hip-hop stylings in contemporary R&B music, which became known as alternative R&B. His accolades include four Grammy Awards, 20 Billboard Music Awards, 22 Juno Awards, six American Music Awards, three MTV Video Music Awards, a Latin Grammy Award and nominations for an Academy Award and a Primetime Emmy Award.
Tesfaye has sold over 75 million records, making him one of the world's best-selling artists. He has earned seven diamond-certifications from the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) for his singles, and is the first artist to simultaneously hold the top three spots on the Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs chart. He has also set the record for most songs to have over 1 billion streams on Spotify (27), with "Blinding Lights" being the most-streamed song in the platform's history. Tesfaye was listed by Time as one of the world's most influential people in 2020. He has donated to various causes and as an advocate for racial equality and food security, he was appointed a World Food Programme goodwill ambassador in 2021.
At seventeen, Tesfaye dropped out of school and relocated to an apartment in the neighbourhood of Parkdale with two friends, one of whom is La Mar Taylor—his best friend and now creative director. Living a hedonistic lifestyle with his friends, Tesfaye adopted his stage name because he left home on a weekend. He removed the last 'e' in 'weekend' to avoid trademark issues with the Canadian pop rock band the Weekend. He has also experienced homelessness and was incarcerated on several occasions during this time, which encouraged him to "smarten up, to focus". During this time, Tesfaye frequently engaged in drug use, including substances such as ketamine, cocaine, MDMA, magic mushrooms, and cough syrup, stating that drugs were a "crutch" for him when he wrote music. Before releasing music under his current stage name, he went under the alias "Kin Kane", as part of a hip-hop duo called "Bulleez n Nerdz", and was part of a production team called 'the Noise'.
In June 2015, after winning the Centric Award at the BET Awards, Tesfaye performed "Earned It" with Alicia Keys. On June 8, he released the song "Can't Feel My Face" as the album's third single. The track was previously leaked in May, but was released as a single following a performance by Tesfaye at the Apple Worldwide Developers Conference. The single debuted at number twenty-four on the Billboard Hot 100, and peaked at number one, making it Tesfaye's third top 10 hit and his first number-one song in the United States. The song was nominated for Record of the Year and Best Pop Solo Performance at the 58th Annual Grammy Awards. He occupied all three slots on Billboard's Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs chart simultaneously with the aforementioned singles, becoming the first artist in history to accomplish this. He was also unveiled as one of the musical faces of the streaming service Apple Music, alongside Drake. During the 2015 MTV Video Music Awards, Apple debuted a two-part promotional commercial featuring Tesfaye, which had a guest appearance from John Travolta. In July, Tesfaye headlined the inaugural FVDED in the Park festival in Surrey, British Columbia. On June 29, Tesfaye was featured on Meek Mill's second studio album Dreams Worth More Than Money (2015), on the track "Pullin' Up".
Tesfaye cites Michael Jackson, Prince, and R. Kelly as his main musical inspirations. He has attributed Jackson's music as key in spurring him to be a singer, referencing the lyrics to "Dirty Diana" as an example. His high-flying vocal style was influenced by Ethiopian singers such as Aster Aweke. He grew up listening to a variety of music genres, including soul, hip hop, funk, indie rock, and post-punk. Tesfaye is heavily influenced by 1980s music, and credits the video game Grand Theft Auto: Vice City (2002) for "opening my eyes" to the music of that era. "You can hear it as far back as my first mixtape that the '80s – Siouxsie and the Banshees, Cocteau Twins – play such a huge role in my sound."
Tesfaye's discography spans pop, R&B, hip hop, dance, alternative and new wave genres. His work is generally categorized as alternative R&B, due to his contributions in broadening the genre's musical palette to incorporate indie and electronic styles. Mistry writes that he "will be obsequiously praised as the future of R&B music—because Tesfaye is a black singer, not because he's making quantifiable, canonical R&B." Tesfaye shared his thoughts on the primary label during an interview with Time in 2015, stating: "Alternative R&B is in my soul. It's not going anywhere. When I put out songs from House of Balloons in 2010, people said I made R&B cool again. I'm assuming that's when the label was created. I feel honored that a good part of today's music is inspired by it, consciously or subconsciously. The only way I could have done that was to be ambitious and grand." Tesfaye's first three mixtapes; House of Balloons, Thursday and Echoes of Silence, are alternative R&B projects that draw on dream pop, post-punk and trip hop, amongst others. His debut studio album Kiss Land is categorized as R&B and dark wave. His next three albums, Beauty Behind the Madness, Starboy and After Hours, are considered R&B and pop; with Starboy utilizing heavy trap influences, and After Hours drawing on new wave and dream pop influences. Tesfaye's fifth studio album Dawn FM explores dance-pop and synth-pop genres.
| Height | 73 m |
| Weight | 165 lbs |
| Body Measurements | |
| Eye Color | |
| Hair Color |
Dating & Relationship Status
The Weeknd has been involved in several high-profile relationships. He dated model Bella Hadid on-and-off between 2015 and 2019 and later had a brief but highly publicized romance with pop star Selena Gomez in 2017. He has also been linked to model Simi Khadra. As of now, he has kept his current relationship status relatively private, rarely commenting on his personal life in recent years.
The only child of Ethiopian immigrants Makkonen Tesfaye and Samrawit Hailu, who separated shortly after his birth, he was raised in the suburb of Scarborough by his mother and grandmother. Tesfaye's patronymic is spelled "Makkonen" instead of the traditional Ethiopian name "Makonnen". The similarity with the Finnish surname Makkonen is pure coincidence. The spelling of Tesfaye's patronymic might be the result of a typographic error or a new form of the traditional name. Tesfaye is proficient in Amharic, his native language acquired from his grandmother, and is also fluent in French, as he attended a French immersion school. He was further educated at West Hill Collegiate Institute and Birchmount Park Collegiate Institute.
Previously friends in the music industry, Tesfaye and Drake's dispute began in 2019, when the former disapproved of Drake's friendship with ex-girlfriend, Bella Hadid. The feud intensified when Tesfaye echoed an alleged publication of Drake's hiding of his son from the media, specifically on the Gesaffelstein track, "Lost in the Fire". They squashed their dispute in 2022, a year after Drake defended Tesfaye's decision not to submit his music for Grammy award considerations. However, on March 22, 2024, the feud reiginited when Tesfaye appeared on Future and Metro Boomin's collaborative album, We Still Don't Trust You, on the track "All to Myself", which he proclaimed that he was "proud that [he] didn't sell his soul to the devil", referring to Drake's imprint, OVO Sound. Drake later involved Tesfaye in his ongoing feuds with Metro Boomin and Kendrick Lamar through his responding diss tracks, in the context of the highly publicized feud between him and the latter.
From April 2015 to August 2019, Tesfaye was in an on-again, off-again relationship with American model Bella Hadid. She starred in the music video for his single "In the Night" in December 2015. He dated American singer-actress Selena Gomez from January to October 2017. Both of the relationships received widespread media attention, and were the topic of tabloid speculation. Tesfaye has been in a relationship with Saudi-born disc jockey Simi Khadra since February 2022. Publications noticed that unlike his previous romances with Hadid and Gomez, Tesfaye keeps his relationship with Khadra private from the press.
| Parents | |
| Husband | |
| Sibling | |
| Children |
Net Worth
The Weeknd is highly active on social media, with millions of followers across platforms like Instagram, Twitter, and TikTok. He uses these channels to promote his music, share personal updates, and engage with fans. His Instagram handle, @theweeknd, is one of the most followed musician profiles, and he is known for cryptic posts and teasers about upcoming projects.
Education
The Weeknd did not pursue higher education formally. He dropped out of high school in Toronto, choosing instead to focus on his passion for music. His self-taught approach and early experimentation with online platforms were instrumental in launching his career. This background has become a defining part of his narrative as a self-made artist who overcame adversity to achieve global fame.
Tesfaye started working with Drake in May 2011, eventually earning a spot at the latter's OVO Fest on July 31. In July 2011, Tesfaye held his first live performance at the Mod Club Theatre in Toronto. He also participated in concerts hosted by the Black Student Association at the University of Toronto. On August 18, Tesfaye released his second mixtape, Thursday, which garnered usually positive reviews. Tesfaye contributed to four songs on Drake's second studio album, Take Care, released on November 15, as a songwriter, producer and a featured artist on the album's seventh single, "Crew Love". He released his third mixtape, Echoes of Silence, on December 21. It was a longlisted nominee for the 2012 Polaris Music Prize.
After being presented with a Bikila Award for Professional Excellence in 2014, Tesfaye donated CA$50,000 to the University of Toronto to fund a new course on Ge'ez, the classic language of Ethiopia. In May 2016, during Orthodox Easter, Tesfaye donated CA$50,000 to the St. Mary Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Cathedral in Toronto, Canada, a church he attended growing up. In August 2016, he funded a new Ethiopian studies program at the University of Toronto.
On January 9, 2024, Tesfaye partnered with the non-profit organization School on Wheels Inc. to support more than 1,000 students experiencing homelessness. To coincide with his concert in Brazil, Tesfaye released merchandise and will donate 10% of the net profits to the Brazilian Soul Fund of BrazilFoundation.
