Anything for the art…

If you’ve been at all keeping up with music or pop culture, odds are the Weeknd and his terrifying plastic surgery face have haunted your eyes at one point or another. The Toronto crooner has been rocking the look a while now, first sporting a bunch of over the top bandages on various red carpets and such (yes, this goes far before COVID) to completing his transformation with a bunch of exaggerated, seemingly surgically-altered features that were achieved through extensive prosthetics.

Naturally, we all assumed it was for some artsy shit, or some over the top promo strategy for his album After Hours. Well, we can put all the speculation and theories to an end, as The Weeknd has finally revealed the meaning behind his cooked face (no offence Abel).

Speaking in an interview with Variety, The Weeknd finally opened up on the aim behind it all, explaining “The significance of the entire head bandages is reflecting on the absurd culture of Hollywood celebrity and people manipulating themselves for superficial reasons to please and be validated.”

Definitely not an answer we were expecting, but it makes total sense once you think about it. He also explained how the motif fed into the After Hours narrative, stating “It’s all a progression and we watch The Character’s storyline hit heightened levels of danger and absurdity as his tale goes on.”

The interviewer then asks an absolute banger of a question (I’m taking notes), asking “What can we take from the fact that you seem to be intentionally making your face increasingly unattractive while promoting your biggest album?” to which the ‘Save Your Tears’ singer responded “I suppose you could take that being attractive isn’t important to me but a compelling narrative is.”

Bloody hell Abel. Of course you have the deepest, must complex reasoning behind it. No doubt we’ll be seeing similar performative actions from old mate in the near future. For now, check out the singer/ creative extraodinaire draped in bandages at an award show to see the lengths he’s willing to go to for his art.