Celebrity

The 'Can't Feel My Face' crooner remembers what happened during his first meeting with Taylor Swift.

• Oct 22, 2015

AceShowbiz - The Weeknd recalls his first encounter with Taylor Swift. The Canadian singer whose real name is Abel Makkonen Tesfaye tells Rolling Stone for his cover story that the country/pop singer was drawn to his hair when they first met at a Grammy after-party. "Everyone was hammered," he says.

"But the whole time she was talking," he says, "she was kind of, like, petting my hair? I think she was just drawn to it - she must have been a little gone off a few drinks. And of course I'm not going to be like, 'Hey, can you stop?' I mean, it felt good! But when she started petting my hair, that's when I was like, 'I definitely need a drink.' "

2015 breakout star #TheWeeknd appears on our new cover. A press-shy Ethiopian kid, he has cultivated a near-mythical image as a bed-hopping, pill-popping, chart-topping cipher. "We live in an era when everything is so excessive," he says. "I think it's refreshing for everybody to be like, 'Who the fuck is this guy?'" Find out by reading our new cover story in full on RollingStone.com. Photograph by @MarkSeliger

A photo posted by Rolling Stone (@rollingstone) on Oct 21, 2015 at 9:59am PDT

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Taylor loves his music too. "She actually schooled me on my own sh*t," he reveals. "She was like, 'I've been listening to 'The Morning' [from House of Balloons] for years - it's one of my favorite songs ever!' I mean, she might have just Googled it. But she seemed genuine."

The Weeknd says his hair was inspired by Jean-Michel Basquiat. "I want to be remembered as iconic and different," he explains. "So I was like, 'F*ck it - I'm gonna let my hair just be what it wants.' I'll probably cut it if it starts interfering with my sight. I can kind of see it right now. But if I cut it, I'd look like everyone else. And that's just so boring to me."