Last year, The Weeknd (real name Abel Tesfaye) surprised fans by appearing at multiple events, including the American Music Awards, Video Music Awards, and Saturday Night Live, with a bloody, swollen, bandaged face. It looked as if she had been beaten or had been in an accident, and each time she appeared, she got worse and more painful. His (completely fake) bloody and bandaged look, which he describes as "progress" while playing "The Character" - more on that later - has been going on since March 2020. It's a nod to his album After Hours, released the same month, and while The Weeknd himself didn't wear fake blood or prosthetics during his Super Bowl LV halftime show in February 2021 (open in new tab), his performance featured "The Character" dressed as Dozens of dancers appeared on stage dressed as "The Character.

Click here for a detailed description and timeline of "The Character."

The look debuted on "Saturday Night Live" in March 2020. (His album After Hours was released on March 20, 2020.) Note here that his fake injuries seem minor, at least compared to later.

It didn't take long for fans to realize that this new look was not the result of an accident, but a reference to his recent music. Specifically, it was a callback to the music video for "Blinding Lights," in which The Weeknd gets beat up by a bouncer, drives drunk, and ends up covered in blood, "I never want to promote drunk driving, but that's the dark undertone," he told Esquire ( open in new tab).

At the time, The Weeknd told CR Fashion Book: "It's a very committed vision and character, and it explores a different side of me that my fans haven't seen before."

The video for "Blinding Lights" is available here. [Watch the video for "Blinding Lights" here:

And here's the short film. The Weeknd wanders the streets with a swollen eye, a broken nose, and confusion. It ends with him murdering a couple in an elevator.

At the August 2020 VMAs, The Weeknd stepped it up a notch. And at the November 2020 AMAs, The Weeknd stepped it up even more. This appearance was the peak of the bloody face image, and now his entire face and head are covered in bandages, and both eyes appear to be badly swollen:

Then, believe it or not, things get even . Things get even weirder. In January 2021, nine months after his bloody-faced debut, The Weeknd released the music video for "Save Your Tears". (19]

He also posted an Instagram with the same look:

And at the Super Bowl, The Weeknd did not play The Character, but had a bunch of other people do it:

The full performance is below:

Basically Basically, The Weeknd tells us the story through his music, his costumes, and the increasingly horrific "injuries" suffered by his character, The Character, to quote his interview with Variety in early 2021. The Character drives drunk, fights with bouncers, commits murder, is controlled by dark forces, and eventually has plastic surgery to remake his entire face.

Another part of The Character: the red suit jacket. The Weeknd has always worn some kind of red suit jacket in his major public appearances over the past year, including the VMAs, AMAs, short films, and music videos. Sometimes it's bedazzled, sometimes it's fire-engine red and oversized, but it's always a red suit jacket. (29]

Interestingly, The Weeknd chose a photo of his face not swollen and bloody for the cover of his best album, The Highlights.

In early February 2021, about a year after his bloody-faced debut, The Weeknd finally (opens in new tab) confided in Variety (opens in new tab) his latest news: "The significance of the bandage on my head reflects the absurd culture of Hollywood celebrity and the way in which people manipulate themselves to please and reflects those who manipulate themselves for superficial reasons in order to be justified. We see the level of danger and absurdity rise as his story progresses."

"The story of the man who is a celebrity is a story of the man who is a celebrity, and the man who is a celebrity is a story of the man who is a celebrity.

When pursued further, he said: "Being engaging is not important to me, but being a compelling story is. And when Variety asked him why he sometimes does stage makeup and sometimes doesn't, he replied: "Why not play with the characters and the artists and blur the lines between them and let them move around?"