The Weeknd denies that he ever had a feud with Usher over 'Climax'
The Weeknd has denied that he ever had a feud with Usher over the latter’s song ‘Climax’.
The singer – real name Abel Tesfaye – said in April he was “angry” when he first heard Usher’s 2012 song, because it made him say “‘Holy fuck, that’s a Weeknd song’.”
“It was very flattering, and I knew I was doing something right, but I also got angry,” The Weeknd said in the initial interview. “But the older I got, I realised it’s a good thing.”
After Tesfaye’s comments, Usher then launched a #ClimaxChallenge on social media, where he sang along to the track, before Tesfaye said that his initial comment about his anger was taken out of context.
In a new interview with Esquire, Tesfaye has again stated that he never had any feud with Usher, and that he phoned him up to apologise for how his comments could’ve been misinterpreted.
“I hit him up to apologise and tell him that it was misconstrued,” he said. “[Usher is] one of the reasons why I make music. Definitely. No, no, I have nothing bad to say about Usher.”
Tesfaye went on to call Usher the “sweetest, most down-to-earth guy ever.”
In the same interview, The Weeknd addressed the misogyny in his past lyrics, and revealed that he wants to write a full album for a female artist.
“It’s like you want people to feel a certain way. You want them to feel angry. You want them to feel sad. You want them to feel. It’s never, like, my intent to offend anybody,” he said.
“I’m a writer. Sometimes I write a song and it’s not in my head. I’m writing it for someone else, but then I end up singing it.”
The Weeknd released new album ‘After Hours’ back in March, which NME said is “his most all-encompassing record to date” but “also an existential quandary”.
