The Weeknd has opened up about his full-face bandage which fans have been reacting to as he has been spotted many times with it.
The singer who performed at Sunday’s Super Bowl LV halftime show, said he never had any surgery, as those were mere rumours. The singer while speaking with Variety magazine before his performance on Sunday, said the full-face bandage is reflecting on the absurd culture of Hollywood celebrity and people manipulating themselves for superficial reasons to please and be validated.
Back in November of 2019, the Weeknd launched his “After Hours” album cycle with a pair of songs — the smash singles and videos “Blinding Lights” and “Heartless” — that began the red-jacketed, busted-nose character and his bad-night-in-Las-Vegas storyline that has continued through many of his videos, TV and awards show appearances.
Over the past few weeks, the internet has been full of chatter, memes and confusion, with many fans wondering what the full-face bandage mean, and whether he will continue the theme at the Super Bowl. What’s going on? The Weeknd answers a few but by no means all.
See the questions and answer session with Variety:
Your “After Hours” character has been increasingly more bandaged, with an entire head bandage at AMAs, and is now evidently post-plastic surgery. People have been speculating about this for weeks — what does it symbolize or mean?
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.
Can you give any insight into how the bandages fit into the original “bad night in Las Vegas” storyline?
It’s all a progression and we watch The Character’s storyline hit heightened levels of danger and absurdity as his tale goes on.
What can we take from the fact that you seem to be intentionally making your face increasingly unattractive while promoting your biggest album?
I suppose you could take that being attractive isn’t important to me but a compelling narrative is.
Sometimes you appear in photos or on TV and videos in character, sometimes not. Why?
Why not play with the character and the artist and let those lines blur and move around?
Are you in character now?
I don’t know, I’d have to ask him.