The Weeknd on the ‘Breakdown’ That Inspired His ‘Hurry Up Tomorrow’ Album and Film, and Why He Might Retire the Weeknd: ‘It Never Ends Until You End It’

variety.com:

After Hours Til Dawn” North American tour, the Weeknd confidently took the stage of SoFi Stadium in Inglewood, California, before 80,000 fans, friends, label executives, his management and a camera crew shooting a climactic scene for his HBO drama “The Idol.” As the dramatic opening music of “Alone Again” thundered across the stadium, he rose slowly from beneath the stage on a hydraulic platform onto a set depicting a ruined, dystopian city.

He began singing the song’s opening verses, as he had over the tour’s previous 17 concerts, while wraith-like dancers shrouded in red gowns stood at attention around him.

But when, approximately 45 seconds after he appeared onstage, he shouted, “Hey, Los Angeles!” between verses, his voice cracked.

He opened his mouth to sing the next line, and for one of the first times in his life, his source of power — his unmistakable, one-in-a-million voice — was gone. “My body, and specifically my voice, had never failed me before,” he says now. “I’d been onstage with a high fever, completely sick; I’d been onstage in the middle of a breakup or a death in the family; and I’d lost my voice during a performance.