The Weeknd had a good weekend. He teased a potential appearance in the desert for the first weekend of Coachella 2023, but that was buried beneath his tease of The Idol Vol. 1 and news that The Idol will premiere out-of-competition at next month’s 2023 Cannes Film Festival.
Surprise, surprise: the teases were interconnected.
Metro Boomin brought out The Weeknd, Future, John Legend, Don Toliver, 21 Savage, and Diddy. The Weeknd’s portion included the live debut of “Creepin’,” the Heroes & Villains collaborative track with Metro Boomin and 21 Savage that peaked at No. 3 on the Billboard Hot 100, and what’s believed to be “Double Fantasy” with Mike Dean (as reported by Billboard).
The latter was among last week’s teases:
Per Billboard, “For the live debut, Dean’s saxophone rumbled through the Sahara Tent while the crowd was blinded by The Weeknd’s fluorescent, all-white ensemble, along with the lights he once sang about. ‘Temperature rising, bodies united, now that I tried you in my arms. No need to fight it, no need to hide it, now that I’ve seen what’s in your heart,’ he sang before letting his vocal runs synch up with the electrifying synths.”
The Weeknd will take any good press related to The Idol, even if tangential, after the Rolling Stone‘s damning investigative report about allegedly troubling working conditions on the HBO set. He responded to the criticism, though Jeremy O. Harris didn’t explicitly ask about the March report, for Interview Magazine:
“I’m used to it more than someone like Sam [Levinson], who’s probably a little bit used to it now. And I’m sure Lily[-Rose Depp], definitely — Lily’s stronger than both of us. But I’ve been judged since the beginning. My stuff’s always kind of been provocative. I understand it’s hard for people to separate that sometimes and that some people want to have an opinion about you, even if it’s not true.
As an artist, you have to know that you can’t please everybody, and you have to accept that it comes with the job. You have to remind yourself that everybody that knows you, knows you’re a good person. If you’re going out there trying to prove to people you’re a good person all the time, then it becomes like a dead end. But what I’ve learned is, with time people will learn to understand. But I have thick skin. I’m used to it.”
Read the full interview here.