LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA: Since the time, HBO’s ‘The Idol’ premiered at the Cannes, the show’s stars, The Weeknd and Lily-Rose Depp, have become the talk of the town. Many fans were also ready to find out the influences the R&B singer's own life had on the show. The singer has now reclaimed back his birth name, Abel Makkonen Tesfaye.
He was born to Ethiopian immigrant parents, who survived the Red Terror in Ethiopia. The ‘Starboy’ hitmaker was brought up in Toronto, Canada. His father Makkonen Tesfaye and his mother Samra separated soon after the singer-actor was born in 1990. Tesfaye was mainly brought up by his mother and grandmother.
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According to The Sun, he didn’t even see much of his father during his growing up years. His mother is known to have worked in multiple jobs so that she could bring up her son.
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While nothing much is known about his father, it can be understood from Tesfaye’s social media posts that he is a “mama’s boy”. His mother, Samra, holds Canadian citizenship now. She was instrumental in Tesfaye’s learning his mother tongue, Amharic.
‘She looked at me like she had failed’
In a 2015 interview with the New York Times, the Guinness World Record holding most popular artist recounted his teenage years where he tried every sort of drug. While Tesfaye smoked marijuana for the first time when he was just 11, he quickly transcended to other hard drugs including ketamine, ecstasy, oxycodone, and Xanax, as per Showbiz Cheatsheet.
He dropped out of high school when he was just 17 and left home soon after. His accomplice was his best friend with whom he started living at Parkdale. After he was evicted from that place he planned on an ingenious method of asking for temporary refuge from girls by proclaiming love.
He revealed later, as he got a job in a clothes shop, he started to reclaim his life back. However, even though he later became successful in turning his life back, his mother who raised him as a single mother amidst several hardships, would disapprove of his antics. He reminisced that his mother would often look at him with “the worst look anyone could ever have,” further elaborating, ‘‘She looked at me like she had failed.’’
However, it remains to be seen how Samra would react now as her son is starring in a bold role in the upcoming HBO show ‘The Idol’ which has already shocked the audience at the Cannes with its graphic portrayal of nudity and explicit sexual content.
‘Everything good, I get from my mother’
Despite everything, Tesfaye has never shied away from showing his allegiance to his mother, according to The US Sun. In an interview with Rolling Stone in 2015, the ‘Reminder’ singer candidly said, “I’m a mama’s boy,” before proudly announcing that whatever is good in him, he has inherited from his mother. “Everything good, I get from my mother,” said the Canadian singer.
'I’m definitely trying to shed that skin and be reborn'
The Weeknd, who has now started going by his birth name Abel Makkonen Tesfaye, recently shared in an interview with W magazine, “I’m going through a cathartic path right now.” He elaborated about his desire to slowly dissipate his identity as The Weeknd and instead embrace himself as Abel.
The ‘Save Your Tears’ singer was quoted saying, “It’s getting to a place and a time where I’m getting ready to close the Weeknd chapter. 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.”
He also felt the need to “kill” The Weeknd now as according to him this identity has already run its course. Saying that he would probably be signing off after the album he is working on now, “The album I’m working on now is probably my last hurrah as The Weeknd.” ‘I Was Never There’ singer added, “This is something that I have to do. As The Weeknd, I’ve said everything I can say.”
