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‘Men run away from vulnerability’: The Weeknd on blinding success, panic attacks and why The Idol was ‘half-baked’

Abel Tesfaye is arguably the world’s biggest pop star – so why is he thinking of wrapping up the Weeknd? As he releases soul-baring film Hurry Up Tomorrow, he charts his path through drugs, heartbreak and abandonment

The concert, which had to be called off and rescheduled, was the final night of a US stadium tour happening while Tesfaye was also wrapping up his painfully gestated – and eventually widely lampooned – TV series The Idol, which he starred in, co-wrote and co-produced. Photograph: Andrew Cooper/Lionsgate/APThe loss of his voice and the aftermath inspired him to co-write a psychological thriller out this week, Hurry Up Tomorrow, directed by Trey Edward Shults (a darling of the trendy A24 production stable). The mixtapes thrilled the underground but his ambition pushed him into the mainstream in 2015 with second album Beauty Behind the Madness – its disco-funk and power ballads would have rivalled Get Lucky and Uptown Funk in thefamily-friendly stakes were it not for all the cocaine references.

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