The Weeknd | Entertainment News, Photos, and Videos

The Weeknd is helping in a huge way.

The 31-year-old After Hours superstar revealed on Easter Sunday (April 4) that he is donating $1 million to hunger relief in Ethiopia amid reports of ethnic cleansing in the Tigray region, resulting in thousands of deaths and more than two million people displaced in the area.

In February, an internal U.S. government report found that people in Tigray are being driven from their homes in a war begun by Ethiopia, via the New York Times.

“My heart breaks for my people of Ethiopia as innocent civilians ranging from small children to the elderly are being senselessly murdered and entire villages are being displaced out of fear and destruction. I will be donating $1 million to provide 2 million meals through the United Nations World Food Programme and encourage those who can to please give as well,” he wrote.

The Weeknd‘s parents immigrated to Canada from Ethiopia. He also grew up speaking Amharic, the language of Ethiopia.

He recently made an announcement regarding the way his music will be released in the future.

The Weeknd is getting into the NFT world.

The 31-year-old After Hours superstar revealed his plans for his next release on social media on Friday (March 26).

PHOTOS: Check out the latest pics of The Weeknd

“new song living in NFT space. coming soon…” he tweeted.

If you didn’t know, the emerging NFT market is becoming a hot-spot for celebrities to sell their digital art, and stars like Grimes have already made millions selling their digital goods.

NFT stands for “non-fungible token,” and it allows buyers to purchase ownership of a digital good – usually an image, animation, song or video, in the form of a unique digital token living on a blockchain.

Twitter’s Jack Dorsey just sold his first tweet as a NFT in the millions.

Fans of The Weeknd are going to love this news!

The 31-year-old entertainer dropped the the reissue of his debut mixtape House of Balloons.

PHOTOS: Check out the latest pics of The Weeknd

The release comes on the 10-year anniversary of when he first dropped the mixtape back in 2011.

The House of Balloons reissue features original mixes and samples that did not make the final cut on the original mixtape. This also marks the first time the mixtape is available on all streaming sites.

The Weeknd also teamed up with contemporary artist Daniel Arsham on a House of Balloons merch collection, which will drop on The Weeknd‘s online store at 3 pm ET Sunday, March 21, and will only be available for 48 hours.

You can download The Weeknd‘s mixtape off of iTunes here – stream House of Balloons thanks to Spotify below!

The Weeknd‘s After Hours was completely snubbed from the 2021 Grammys nominations list and he has revealed his intention to boycott the music award show forever because of it. The Weeknd‘s album, and hits like “Blinding Lights” have received critical acclaim and broken records, and yet, he got absolutely no recognition from the Recording Academy.

When he spoke to the New York Times for their story that was published on March 11, he revealed he will be boycotting the Grammys forever “because of the secret committees.”

He added, “I will no longer allow my label to submit my music to the Grammys.”

The New York Times explains that committee members are selected by the academy to review music that has been placed on a shortlist by voters. Names can be added as well. There are allegations that these committee members are “favoring artists with connections to academy board members.”

SEE THEM HERE: The 2021 Grammys Nominations That Totally Snubbed The Weeknd

The Weeknd‘s manager, Wassim Slaiby, said they still don’t understand his lack of nominations. “We were many weeks and dozens of calls in with the Grammy team around Abel’s performance right up to the day of nominations being announced,” Wassim said. “We were scratching our heads in confusion and wanted answers.”

After the nominations were released, The Weeknd called out the Grammys publicly.

Another star just called out the Grammys this week and actually cursed them out for their alleged nomination practices.

The Weeknd‘s “Blinding Lights” is making major history on the Billboard charts.

The track, which is off of his The Highlights album, has been on the Billboard Hot 100 chart in the Top 10 for an entire year.

This makes the song the chart’s longest-running top-ten hit ever.

“Blinding Lights” first came into the top 10 on the February 29, 2020 chart, and hit the number one spot in April and stayed there for four weeks.

The track left the top 10 for only a few weeks in December 2020 before climbing its way back up as it led up to The Weeknd‘s Super Bowl performance.

The Hot 100 blends all-genre U.S. streaming (official audio and official video), radio airplay and sales data.

The song beats out Post Malone‘s “Circles” and “Sunflower” tracks, which spent 39 and 33 weeks in the Top 10 respectively; and also tops Maroon 5 and Cardi B‘s “Girls Like You” and Ed Sheeran‘s “Shape of You”, which both topped out at 33 weeks in the Top 10.

“Blinding Lights” has also tied for the most time totaled in the Hot 100′s top three, 21 weeks, equaling the sums of The Chainsmokers‘ “Closer” and Mark Ronson‘s “Uptown Funk!”

If you didn’t see, there’s a documentary in the works for The Weeknd‘s Super Bowl performance.

• The Weeknd got a special, one-of-a-kind diamond Super Bowl ring – TMZ
• The Masked Dancer winner opens up about that scary fall – Just Jared Jr
• A Buffy star won’t comment on allegations yet – DListed
• Salma Hayek reacts to accusations – TooFab
• Photos of Ted Cruz go viral amid backlash – Towleroad
• A huge star praises Charli D’Amelio – Just Jared Jr

The Weeknd performance at the 2021 Super Bowl is the subject of a new documentary!

Showtime has announced that it will release THE SHOW, a 90-minute behind-the-scenes look at the making of the Super Bowl Halftime Show. While no release date has been set, the documentary is expected to air later this year.

Pepsi’s VP of Marketing Todd Kaplan said in a statement, “With our new documentary coming to Showtime, we are taking fans on the emotional and thrilling journey of what it takes to make the biggest show of the year – with the added complexity of doing so amidst a global pandemic. With Jesse Collins and a number of super-talented creatives at the helm, THE SHOW chronicles all the drama and hard work that goes into successfully pulling off a show of this magnitude.”

The film is directed by award-winning filmmaker Nadia Hallgren, who is known for her work on the Emmy-nominated documentary Becoming about Michelle Obama.

Click here to see The Weeknd‘s reaction to his Super Bowl performance!