The Weeknd spending nights in jail as a teenager was a 'second chance' he needed

March 10, 2024

In a 2016 interview, The Weeknd opened up about spending time in jail as a teenager.

The talented singer and music icon, whose real name is Abel Tesfaye, told The Guardian he was arrested around the age of 18. However, the now 34-year-old singer has since labeled the experience his “second chance”, explaining how the incident helped kick-start his journey to dizzying heights and Blinding Lights.

The Weeknd went to jail as a teenager

In his interview with The Guardian, The Weeknd explained he had been in jail during his late teens. Although he didn’t specify the reason for arrest, he said they the offence was “bad enough” for him to realize he needed to “smarten up, to focus.”

He said: “A lot of people don’t get that second chance. But around that age, you usually get one second chance after a slap on the wrist. And you either take the experience and think, ‘This is it, final straw’, or you don’t. And the next move after that? It’s your entire life.

You become who you become because of the next move you make.”

The 34-year-old added he dropped out of school at 17 after talking about it with a classmate and good friend.

“Some people can’t do it, whatever it is, whether it’s leaving home, quitting a job, dropping out of school. And they’ll never know. But for me, it was one of those things. I didn’t think about it. I did it.”

He was arrested again in 2015

At 24 in 2015, The Weeknd found himself in jail once more. This time, it was for assaulting a police officer. Abel had been in a Las Vegas hotel and had gotten into a fight and, while being pulled into an elevator by a cop who had gone to investigate the disturbance, the celebrity punched the authority figure.

He was charged with a misdemeanor battery of a protected person and taken to Clark County Detention Center. The officer was said not to have been seriously injured and The Weeknd was bailed out of prison a short time later. Afterward, he tweeted: “Escape from Las Vegas.”

He pled no contest to the charge at his trial, meaning he conceded to the charges but did not admit what he had done. He was ordered to pay $1,000 to a fund for the officer he assaulted as well as complete an anger management course, undergo an alcohol evaluation, and perform 50 hours of community service.

In a 2020 interview with Variety, the TV actor opened up about that period in his life and addressed it in his song Faith from his album After Hours. He said the arrest “wasn’t really proud of.”

“I was getting really, really tossed up and going through a lot of personal stuff,” he told the outlet, “I got arrested in Vegas. It was a real rock-star era, which I’m not really proud of. You hear sirens at the end the song — that’s me in the back of the cop car, that moment.”