The Weeknd, real name Abel Tesfaye, appears to have abandoned plans to retire his stage persona, telling fans in Stockholm at the weekend that he will "never disappear" and had not enjoyed testing retirement. The reversal follows comments he made to Variety last year, when he suggested he might shelve The Weeknd name after completing existing commitments, saying the persona had become a "rat race" of accolades and expectations that he had already mastered.

Tesfaye, who has performed as The Weeknd since 2011 and has also branched into acting and producing, had never said he was quitting music altogether, only that he was considering retiring the name itself. His original comments came around the release of his Hurry Up Tomorrow album, and the idea of stepping back reportedly traces to a 2022 SoFi Stadium show in Los Angeles where he lost his voice mid-performance and later suggested the cause may have been psychological rather than physical.